Voi. XV., No. 17 . December 31, 1896, (“SK'WSSS&S 0 



DR. DARCH’S WIFE 

A STUDY 



Issued Semi-Monthly. Entered at the Post-Office at Mew York as second-class matter. 

^ETER FENELON COLLIER, Publisher, 523 W. 13th St., N. Y. 


by 

FLORENCE WARDEN 

Author of “ Those Westerton Qirls ,” “ A Witch of the Hills,” 
“ The Inn by the Shore,” “ Ralph Ryder of Brent,” “ The 
House on the Marsh,” etc., etc . 




Dr. Darch’S Wife 

A STUDY 


BY 

FLORENCE^ WARDEN 

Author of “ Those Westerton Girls,” “ A Witch of the 
Hills,” “ The Inn by the Shore,” “Ralph Ryder of 
Brent,” “ The House on the Marsh,” etc., etc. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1896, by 
Peter Fenklon Collier 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington 







.. 











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H 
































































"\ 








f 






DR. DARCH’S WIFE 

A STUDY 


CHAPTER ONE 

A PROPHECY 

The house was called “The Firs,” and the 
odd part of it was that there was really a strag- 
gling double row of fir trees on the ridge of high 
ground behind the house. 

In the long white, two-storied house, with its 
sloping slate roof and green-roofed veranda, the 
late Dr. Darch had carried on for some thirty 
odd years, in the sleepy Sussex village, a practice 
which had been shared, and was now inherited, 
by his son and only child. 

Harry Darch, the son in question, was a bach- 
elor ; but this was not the fault of the ladies of 
the neighborhood; the older of whom were al- 
ways impressing upon him that a doctor ought 
to be a married man, while among the younger 
there was a general disposition to look kindly 
upon the handsome son of the well-to-do old 
doctor. 


( 3 ) 


4 DR. DARCH’S WIFE 

The hesitation of the young man in taking the 
necessary plunge was the more unaccountable, 
as there was a young girl popularly described 
as “made for him” within very easy reach. 
This was Nance Incledon, the orphan niece of 
his stepmother, who had been an inmate of 
The Firs ever since old Dr. Darch’s second 
marriage fifteen years before. Harry Darch 
had, therefore, seen pretty, lively Nance grow 
from a child to a woman, or, rather, he had 
found the charming transformation completed 
when, at the end of his. student days, he had 
come back to his father’s roof four years ago. 

Nance had been then nineteen, and all the vil- 
lage were straining their ears for the sound of 
the wedding-bells on that occasion. No union 
could have been more appropriate, said every- 
body. He was fair, and she was dark. He 
was broad and stalwart, she slender and rapid 
of movement. He was a trifle stolid and prosaic, 
while she was as lively as a bird. 

But the good folk of Checksfield were disap- 
pointed. For Harry Darch chose to jog on his 
way unattached until the death of his father 
gave him another opportunity of treading in 
the course which had been marked out for 
him. 

It was about a month after the death of the 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


5 


old doctor, and no fresh developments had oc- 
curred in the situation, when young Dr. Darch 
and a friend from the neighborhood, Mark Al- 
derby, from The Grange, were lingering over a 
glass of wine in the pretty dining-room, while 
Mark’s young sister and Nance played tennis 
on the lawn which lay at the bottom of the steep 
green slope in front of the house. 

Mrs. Darch, a thin, gray-haired woman, in 
deep widow’s mourning, sat sewing — she was 
always sewing — in a low basket chair, at a little 
distance from the players. 

Mark’s eyes followed every movement .of 
Nance, as the girlish figure in black flitted 
and swayed, and stooped and whirled, in the 
progress of the game. Mark was a tall, some- 
what ungainly lad of three-and-twenty, of that 
common English t^pe which has a straight, 
sharply protruding chin, light blue eyes, a white 
face, and hair of no color in particular. The 
type generally goes with a sentimental disposi- 
tion, as it did in this case. 

Harry Darch watched him with a . little smile 
on his face; and Mark, turning to him sud- 
denly, caught the smile. He blushed a dull 
pink color, and began to stammer. 

“Er — er — good game tennis!” he began awk- 
wardly enough. “I’m a bad player myself, but 


6 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


I like to see it played, especially — ” he stopped 
and hesitated again. 

“ Your little sister plays very well,” said Harry 
Darch. 

“Oh, yes, she does, pretty well,” returned the 
brother, without enthusiasm. “Not so well as 
Miss Incledon, by a long way. She’s — she’s 
one of the most graceful players I’ve ever seen.” 

“Nance does play well,” assented Dr. Darch. 
“Thin people always do, I suppose.” 

“Thin!” burst out Mark, as if the epithet 
had been an insult. “You call her thin!” 

“Well, slim, slender, whatever you like to call 
it,” agreed Harry, with a laugh. 

Mark’s face still glowed as he answered with 
less hesitation than before. He was excited by 
what he considered unjust disparagement of 
Nance. 

“/ should call it fairy-like, ” said he. “She 
makes me think of every graceful thing I’ve 
ever seen: swallows, swans, reeds in the wind.” 

“You’re getting quite poetical. I really think 
Nance ought to know of the compliments that 
are being showered upon her!” 

And Harry Darch rose from his chair, and 
was stepping out into the veranda, when Mark 
nervously clutched at his arm. 

“No, no, don’t go, don’t say anything. You 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


7 


might if it would be of any use, but it wouldn’t, 
I know.” 

He was manifestly in earnest, so Dr. Darch 
let himself be detained, and looked at him with 
a not unkindly smile, which was, perhaps, in- 
tended to cover the thought which was in his 
mind. 

“Why wouldn’t it be of any use?” he asked 
quietly. 

Mark looked at him with a sidelong glance 
out of his light eyes ; and a slight frown of per- 
plexity came over his face. 

“Oh, surely you know, you must know!” 
said he. 

“Surely I don’t know what you mean!” 

“Well, everybody else knows it,” said Mark 
bluntly. “It’s been the talk of the place for 
ever so long that there’s only one person Miss 
Incledon would care to marry.” 

Young Dr. Darch said nothing to this. He 
did not ask who the only person was. Mark 
looked at him, and, after a short pause, took 
courage, and asked simply : 

“Why on earth don’t you, Darch?” 

“Because I’m a fool, I suppose,” said the 
young doctor dryly. “At least — no, I won’t 
say that. There is no great wisdom in hurry- 
ing on the inevitable, after all.” 


8 


DR. d arch’s wife; 


“The inevitable?’ ’ repeated Mark rather curtly. 

He thought these words implied a slight on the 
beautiful Miss Incledon. 

The next moment, however, he was reassured 
by the look in his friend’s eyes, a look full of 
grave, somber consideration of the situation. 

“Inevitable. Yes. Isn’t it at least as inevi- 
table that I must love her, as that she should let 
herself be loved? I’m not a particularly inter- 
esting person, not a ladies’ man at all. If I 
really have a chance with such a nice girl as 
Nance, oughtn’t I to think myself a lucky fel- 
low?” 

“Well, you ought, but you don’t.” 

“It doesn’t do to be too confident. Supposing 
she should refuse me, after all?” 

“She won’t. You know that.” 

“I don’t feel so sure myself.” 

“I only wish I were in your shoes.” 

Harry Darch affected not to hear him. He 
had gone out on to the green slope outside, by 
way of cutting short a conversation which was 
embarrassing to him. 

No man of any spirit cares to tread a path 
which has been carefully chalked out for him; 
still less can he be expected to start on his way 
with enthusiasm, however pleasant, however 
promising the course may be. 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


9 


If he had been a free agent, it is more than 
probable that Nance Incledon’s vivacity, con- 
trasting as it did with his own steady gravity, 
her beauty, which was undeniable, and her girl- 
ish charm, would have roused in him that 
warmth of passion which is inseparable from 
a man’s best love. But, urged forward as lie 
was by the openly expressed wish of his late 
father, and by the universal voice, it was only 
natural that he should draw back, that he should 
find the feet of the lover weighted by the burden 
of sound, commonplace prudence of the man of 
common sense. 

The girls had put down their racquets by the 
time the two young men reached the tennis 
ground ; and Mark’s sister, who was a feminine 
replica of himself, tall, angular, light-eyed and 
gentle, held out her hand to Harry. 

“Going already?” said he. 

“We must. Mama only let me come on con- 
dition I came home early. I’m supposed to be 
delicate, you know. It’s the general superstition 
about people jvho are run up by the yard. I 
hear you’re going away?” 

“Not very far, or for very long. I’ve got to 
go up to town to settle some business in connec- 
tion with my father’s will.” 

“And when you come back, will you go on 


10 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


living here at The Firs just the same?” went 
on Minnie, with the delightful indiscretion of 
fifteen. 

Dr. Darch grew red, and glanced at Nance, 
who was talking to his stepmother. 

“With— with very little difference,” answered 
he, stolidly. 

“Because Mrs. Darch and Nance are talking 
of moving into one of the cottages,” pursued 
Minnie. 

“Come along, Minnie,” cried her brother im- 
patiently, as he noticed a slight look of embar- 
rassment on the doctor’s face. 

But Harry Darch had been making up his 
mind. This hint of a removal gave the neces- 
sary spur to his lagging energies. 

As soon as the Alderbys had gone, he turned 
to Nance, who was picking up the racquets on 
her way to the house. 

“Nance,” said he, as he took them from her, 
and accommodated his strides to her little steps, 
“I want to speak to you. I have something to 
say to you.” 

The girl had some inkling of the truth, cer- 
tainly. The pretty color in her cheeks faded a 
little, and she stopped for a moment on her way 
up the slope. 

Then, going briskly on again, she said gayly : 


DR. D ARCH’S WIFE 


11 


“Something to say? Something of real im- 
portance, do you mean?” 

“Well, as tor that, it depends how you look 
at it. I — I want to ask you if you will be mjr 
wife.” 

This was abrupt enough, but Nance did not 
even pretend to be surprised. She stopped again, 
and -this time she turned to face him. 

“You are asking me because your father and 
my aunt wanted you to!” said she in a low 
voice, almost breathlessly. 

“Nance, how can you say such a thing! Don’t 
you think I care for you, dear?” 

“Yes, yes, I know you do. We’ve always 
been good friends. But — That isn’t the same 
as getting married, is it?” 

“It’s the beginning, and the right sort of be- 
ginning, isn’t it?” 

“ Well, do you know, I’m not so sure. I won’t 
go as far as Mrs. Malaprop, and recommend be- 
ginning with a little aversion, but — ” 

“Well?” 

“I — I should like to feel more sure than I 
do — much more sure — that you’re not — not 
just taking the quickest way out of a diffi- 
culty.” 

“Nance, what do you mean?” 

“Why, you don’t quite know what to do with 


12 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


Aunt Nell and me., So the suggestion of marry- 
ing me comes as a happy thought.” 

Harry laughed, not the less heartily that there 
was, in her whimsical remark, a little evident 
truth. 

“All this means, I suppose,” said he, when 
they had both let their laughter die down into 
gravity, “that you don’t care enough about me 
to be my wife?” 

If Harry Darch had been a vainer man than 
he was, the quick little upglance of her brown 
eyes, at these words, would have convinced him 
that his suggestion was a groundless one. She 
did not answer at once, but looked away at the 
ridge of fir trees, while over her bright face there 
came the shadow of a melancholy thought. 

“Look here, Harry,” she said at last, in a 
voice so different from her usual gay, bright 
tones, so much softer, so much deeper, that he 
was moved to new interest, roused to a warmer 
feeling, “we are both quite calm.” It was true 
of him at least. “So we can talk it over soberly. 
You are going away to-morrow — ” 

“But I would put off going away, and we 
could get married, and go away together. Do 
you think I shouldn’t enjoy my holiday ever so 
much better with you than — ” 

“Ah, well, perhaps. But we can’t rush these 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


13 


things through in quite such a hurry. So soon 
after poor uncle’s death too! We should scan- 
dalize the neighborhood. ” 

“Oh, who cares for the neighborhood?” 

“You do. A doctor has to.” 

“Well, hasn’t the neighborhood been trying 
to coerce me into matrimony ever since I came 
back home?” 

Nance looked up at him with a shrewd smile. 
“And it has succeeded at last. Well, but listen. 
You want a holiday badly; you are going to 
take it — by yourself. If you are away six 
weeks, as you propose, you will have time to 
think this serious matter of marriage well over, 
won’t you?” 

“But I have thought it well over. I—” 

“Not enough. If, when you come back at 
the end of the six weeks, you find by experience 
that you can’t exist without me, why, then, you 
can ask me again. And — and we can start with 
some freshness, you see. While if you find that 
yoii can get on without me very well, as I ex- 
pect you will, or if you find someone ‘beyond 
the hills’ whom you like better, then this in- 
terlude can be erased altogether.” 

“I shall see no one I could like better than you, 
Nance. You are the prettiest and the sweetest 
and the best girl in the world.” 


14 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


“ You won’t think so when you have been away 
a month.” 

“Is that a prophecy?” 

“Yes.” 

“Well, I accept the challenge. I shall go 
away and think of you for six weeks, and at 
the end of that time I shall come back and find 
you engaged to the man who is taking my place. ” 

“Well, well, I won’t promise that you won’t. 
It would be more exciting, wouldn’t it, than just 
to drift into the engagement with you that every- 
body’s been expecting?” 

There was a little pique, a little resentment in 
her tone, and Harry Darch, while he laughingly 
agreed with her, wondered, at the bottom of his 
heart, what her real feelings toward him were, 
and whether she really experienced something 
of that stubborn resistance to destiny and him- 
self which he dumbly felt toward destiny and 
her. 

It was impossible to tell. Bad women some- 
times speak the truth, the whole truth, and tell 
what they think and what they feel. But good 
women never do. 

And herein great part of the power of the 
former class lies. 


DR. D ARCH’S WIFE 


’5 


CHAPTER TWO 

THE FULFILLMENT 

Harry Darch ’s programme for the six weeks 
he was to be away included a stay of a week or 
ten days in London on business connected with 
his late father’s will, a month to be spent in 
traveling abroad, and a final week in town on 
his way back to Sussex. 

Harry Darch had an idea of his own as to the 
first part. He would not go to a hotel; he would 
go straight to one of his old chums of St. Bar- 
tholomew days, an artist with permanent lodg- 
ings in Fitzroy Street, and would try and find a , 
room in the same house with him. 

But Mrs. Matthews, the landlady, who opened 
the door to him herself, and recognized him at 
once, informed him that his friend had left and 
that there was another artist in his rooms, one 
of which was fitted as a studio. But her “din- 
ing-rooms” were vacant for a few weeks; would 
Dr. Darch care to have them for his short stay? 


16 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


Harry accepted the offer, installed himself at 
once ; and on the following morning, as he opened 
the door of his sitting-room to go out, he met a 
girl coming down the stairs, and Nance Incle- 
don’s prophecy was fulfilled. 

The girl was a little shorter than Nance, and 
her figure, ill-clad in shabby black, was not 
nearly so good as Miss Incledon’s. But her 
face was so entrancingly pretty in the young 
doctor’s eyes that the first sight of her, as 
her blue Madonna eyes met his, sent a thrill of 
strange excitement through him. 

The girl seemed a little startled, and she 
blushed a little as, after one brief glance, she 
lowered her eyelids modestly and drew back 
a step. 

But Dr. Darch was obstinate. Raising his 
hat, he stepped back into his own. door way, to 
allow her to pass out. 

She hesitated still; and this gave the young 
man time for a longer look. Under a large 
black hat which was trimmed with the greatest 
simplicity, her fair hair was parted above her 
forehead, and was brought in severe, demure 
simplicity down on each side to the tip of the 
little pink ear, which it veiled slightly before the 
two coils met in a great knot at the back of her 
head. This arrangement, so fatally unbeGom- 


PR' darch’s wife 


17 


ing to most faces, gave to her particular type of 
beauty, to the little straight nose, the small, 
oval, sharp-chinned face, to the red mouth with 
its turned-down corners, above all, to the great 
childish blue eyes, the very air of piquant sim- 
plicity most appropriate to the type. 

By the time Harry Darch had noted these de- 
tails, the girl had glauced at him once more, 
and hurried past him out of the house. 

He followed as quickly as he decently could ; 
but she had disappeared. 

All day long he thought about the lovely face: 
in the lawyer’s office in Lincoln’s Inn, while he 
waited the solicitor’s leisure in an atmosphere of 
parchment, rusty pens, and much used blotting- 
paper; in the restaurant where he lunched; in 
the club where he passed a mighty dull evening. 

And in the morning, after waiting within his 
room with a fast-beating heart for the sound of 
a footstep coming down the stairs, he met her 
as before. 

Naturally as he flattered himself he had 
brought this about, it seemed to Harry that 
the girl mistrusted him. A little flush of mod- 
est alarm came into her pretty face ; and it was 
with a more rapid step than before, and without 
another glance at him, that she fled out of the 
house. 


18 


DR. DARCH’S W\FE 


Harry Darch did not dare to follow as quickly 
as before. He was afraid he had offended the 
pretty creature, and this fear kept him occupied 
the entire day. He never once thought of Nance. 
He was too busy trying to devise a plan of meet- 
ing, without again alarming her. She was an 
art-student, he imagined, judging from her ap- 
pearance, and by the portfolio she had carried 
on each occasion. South Kensington was a long 
way off; he conjectured that she might be study- 
ing at the British Museum. 

He thought himself fortunate when, on re- 
turning to his lodgings at night, the landlady 
came up to ask if he would mind moving to the 
second floor on the following day, as the tenant 
of the “dining-rooms” was coming back sooner 
than she had expected. 

“Not a bit,” said Harry, secretly pleased to 
be nearer the region where his art-student dwelt. 
“You can put me anywhere you like. By the 
bye, Mrs. Matthews, who is the demure little 
girl who always goes out at nine o’clock in the 
morning?” 

“Oh, that’s Miss Ritchie. She only has a 
room on the third floor. Everybody asks who 
she is. 4 She’s a quiet little thing, and her face 
gets her more notice than she wants.” 

“Well, it’s one a good many of her sex 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


19 


wouldn’t mind having, with all its draw- 
backs.” 

“You’re right, sir. She’s very good-looking. 
Not but what a girl who has her own living to 
earn had better be plainer.” 

“She’s an art-student, isn’t she?” 

“No. A daily governess. And two or three 
times a week she comes to me crying, and tell- 
ing me that she’s been annoyed and frightened 
in the streets. Dear, dear, it’s a wicked world !” 

“She’s much too pretty to go about alone,” 
said Dr. Darch. 

“Well, what’s a girl to do? I’m sure I pity 
her with all my heart. A nice, good-natured 
little thing, too, that never gives a bit of trouble. 
‘Never mind, Mrs. Matthews,’ she says to me 
of a morning, ‘I’ll do my own room. You’re 
busy to-day, I know.’ Now mostly, you know, 
sir, the ladies give twice as much trouble in 
lodgings as the gentlemen.” 

“Yes, I’ve heard so.” 

“She makes her own breakfast, such as it is, 
and brings her own supper in. But it’s my 
opinion she don’t always have euough to eat. ” 

Dr. Darch moved uneasily. That the owner 
of such a face should go hungry seemed a more 
poignant wrong than any he remembered. 

“And my husband says it’s a credit to a girl 


20 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


as nice-looking as that. And on Sunday we ask 
her in to supper with us, and to see how she en- 
joys it and tries not to show it, why, it goes to 
our hearts.” 

“I wish you’d ask me to supper on Sundays!” 
said Dr. Darch impulsively. 

The landlady looked at him askance. 

“Well, sir,” said she with a rather grudging 
smile, “you are welcome, seeing we know you 
for a true gentleman, as we do. But I wouldn’t 
ask any of the other gentlemen in the house to 
meet her, that I wouldn’t.” 

As this colloquy took place on the Saturday 
evening, Dr. Darch had not long to wait for an 
introduction to the divinity whose hold on his 
heart grew more secure with every hour. He 
dreamed, sleeping and waking, of the Madonna 
face in its frame of soft fair hair. 

On the Sunday morning Miss Ritchie either 
did not go out at all, or went downstairs so 
softly that the young doctor, listening eagerly 
for her footsteps, failed to hear them. 

In the evening, at eight o’clock, Dr. Darch 
presented himself punctually in the sitting-room 
in the basement, where a specially grand supper 
was laid out in his honor, and where Mrs. Mat- 
thews, in a white lace cap of ceremony, and Mr. 
Matthews, in the antediluvian frock-coat he had 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


21 


worn at his own wedding thirty' years before, 
welcomed him with much stateliness. 

But Miss Ritchie was not there. 

While they all three talked in a labored way 
about the weather, the door was opened softly, 
and Dr. Darch stopped short in his prophecy 
that there would be rain in the night. 

In the doorway of the shabby basement room 
the glory of her sweet face and golden hair made 
a radiance which intoxicated the stolid doctor. 
Coming in with a light tread, she was checked 
by the sight of the stranger, and she seemed to 
hesitate whether she should advance into the 
room or retire at once. Mrs. Matthews got up 
and led her forward. 

“We ought to have told you, Miss Ritchie, 
that Dr. Darch, an old friend of ours, was com- 
ing to supper to-night,” said she. 

Miss Ritchie shook hands demurely with the 
doctor and sat down. When she spoke, it was 
in a soft, musical voice which completed the con- 
quest of Harry Darch, whose eyes, unconsciously 
to himself, watched her every movement, or else 
looked elsewhere with evident constraint, and 
stole back to her face shyly when he thought he 
was unobserved. 

Miss Ritchie talked very little. She insisted 
on waiting upon everybody else at supper; and 


22 DR. darch’s wife 

afterward she placed herself on a hassock at Mrs. 
Matthews’ feet, and listened to the talk rather 
than joined in it. 

But the presence of his divinity was enough 
for Dr. Darch,* who had never before shone in 
conversation as he did that night, talking to his 
landlady and her husband, all for the benefit of 
Miss Ritchie, with so much success that he kept 
them all amused and interested, and drew from 
Miss Ritchie the pleased glances, and the laugh- 
ter, which are all that a man asks of the girl 
who has intoxicated him. 

When the girl got up from her lowly seat to 
say good-night, she took up from the sideboard 
a bundle of letters. 

“Is this all for the post to-night?” asked she. 

“Yes, dear,” said Mrs. Matthews. 

Dr. Darch looked surprised. 

“Let me take them for you,” said he. 

Miss Ritchie smiled and shook her head. 

“Oh, no, I always take them. It isn’t a dozen 
steps from here.” 

“Then let me go with you?” 

“No, thank you. I’m used to going about by 
myself.” 

She had snatched up a bonnet, one of Mrs. 
Matthews’, from a cupboard by the fireplace, 
and she put it on, smiling with arch fun as she 


DR. D ARCHES WIFE 


23 


tied the old-fashioned, wide strings under her 
chin, and asked whether any one would not take 
her for Mrs. Matthews. 

“Saucy girl!” exclaimed the landlady, smil- 
ing through her spectacles, as the girl went 
quickly and lightly out of the room. 

She ran up the area steps, and round the cor- 
ner to the next street, where the pillar-box was. 
As she dropped the letters in, a voice startled 
her. 

“Hallo, Claudia!” 

The girl turned round quickly. It was a young 
man, carelessly dressed, who looked like an artist, 
who had addressed her. 

“How do you do?” said she coldly, without 
offering him nor hand. 

“Oh, I’m all right. What are you doing?” 

“Nothing at present. But I’m going to be 
married.” 

“No! Really — married? Who’s the happy 
man?” 

“A young doctor, who lives in the country, 
and keeps a carriage.” 

“Well, well, I hope you’ll be happy, I’m sure.” 

“Thank you. Of course I shall. I’m always 
happy.” 

“So you are, I believe. Well, I hope he’ 11 be 
happy too. ” 


24 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


“Thank you. Good-night.’ ’ 

“Good-night.” 

The young man gazed after her with a face 
full of perplexity and amusement, as the little 
figure in black turned the corner on its way back 
to the house. 


CHAPTER THREE 

THE LITTLE GOVERNESS 

Miss Ritchie had hardly left the basement 
sitting-room when Dr. Darch turned to Mrs. 
Matthews and her husband in some surprise. 

“I wonder you let her go out by herself so 
late,” said he. 

But both the landlady and her husband 
laughed at him, and the former shook her head 
shrewdly. 

“There’s one set of rules for ladies that live 

M 

quietly at home in their fathers’ houses, and 
another for those that have to get their own 
living,” said she. “Miss Ritchie thinks no 
more of having to go out at night than I should; 
she does it every Sunday night to save our old 
legs. She’ll be back again in less than no 
time.” 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


25 


*3 

“She’s very independent,” said the young 
doctor. “And yet so womanly. I never saw 
such an odd combination of extreme modesty 
with great self-reliance. She’s a very interest- 
ing girl. An orphan, I suppose?” 

“Yes. Very respectably connected, and the 
daughter of a schoolmaster, who was at one 
time a beneficed clergymaif, I believe. Her 
friends were very much against her working for 
her own living; but she couldn’t bear to be 
dependent upon them, and so she came to Lon- 
don all alone to support herself by teaching.” 

While Mrs. Matthews ran glibly on with this 
history her husband stared in some astonishment 
behind her back, but did not offer any comment. 

“And is she quite without friends in London?” 

“Oh, no. She makes friends wherever she 
goes by the pretty ways she has. Some of them 
come here to see her sometimes. But she’s too 
proud to see much of them, because, as she says, 
she’s too poor to repay their hospitality.” 

“Quite right. It’s, just what I should feel 
myself,” said Dr. Darch. 

There was a sound behind him as of the click 
of a door-latch. Turning quickly, he was in 
time to catch a glimpse of Miss Ritchie as she 
peeped in and then swiftly shut the door and 
disappeared. 


£6 DR. D ARCH’S WIFE 

ft 

“There, you see she’s back already,” said 
Mrs. Matthews. 

“Why didn’t she come in?” asked the doctor. 

“Oh, because you were here,” said the land- 
lady smiling. “She’s always so shy.” 

“But I’m not a stranger to her now!” 

“Well, anyhow, doctor, shyness in the girls 
is a fault on the right side, isn’t it?” put in old 
Matthews from his armchair. 

“It may be carried to excess, I think,” said 
Harry,, who was disappointed at not seeing the 
girl again. 

Nevertheless, this very excess of reserve was 
an added attraction in the eyes of a man as 
much in love as Harry by this time was. Every 
Word and look of the beautiful girl whose face 
had in the first place attracted him so strongly 
confirmed the impression her appearance had 
made upon him. 

Used as he was to daily companionship with 
a girl of sharp tongue and ready wit, the shafts 
of whose harmless satire were as often aimed at 
himself as at anybody else, and to daily meet- 
ings with the average provincial young lady, 
who can chatter but can hardly be said to talk, 
Harry Darch found the society of this fair-faced 
girl, who smiled more than she spoke, whose 
every movement was gentle, whose every 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


27 


glance was sympathetic, full of charm and 
repose. 

It seemed to him that he read the charming 
dependence of a womanly nature in her very 
attitude as she sat by Mrs. Matthews’ knee; 
and the contrast between her natural inclina- 
tions and the severe isolation into which her 
position had forced her seemed to him to be full 
of pathos. 

When he had bidden good-night to the 
landlady and her husband, and gone upstairs 
to his new quarters on the second floor, old 
Matthews blinked at his wife with inquiring 
eyes. 

“All that you told him about Miss Ritchie — I 
never heard it before! Is it true? Did she tell 
you so?” said he diffidently. 

For Mrs. Matthews, being in every sense the 
head of the household, was not a person whose 
sayings and doings could be criticised with free- 
dom even by her legal lord and master. And 
she answered him in tones much less suave than 
those she had used to her lodgers. 

. “Well, she’s said something like that to me, 
at different times ; or if not, it’s pretty near the 
truth, I suppose; quite near enough, you may 
be sure. I had to tell him something about her, 
to satisfy him. If I had pretended to know 


28 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


nothing, he would have thought there was some- 
thing wrong about the girl.” 

“You don’t think there is, do you?” sug- 
gested Mr. Matthews meekly, after a pause. 

“Why, no, not as far as I know,” retorted his 
wife sharply. 

“He’s very much gone on her, isn’t he?” ob- 
served Mr. Matthews, after a pause; 

“Yes.” 

“I shouldn’t wonder if it went on till he mar- 
ried her!” hazarded the husband of the landlady 
again. “He’s just the sort of mug — I mean just 
the sort of man who might. ’ ’ 

“Well, and why not?” 

“And if he does, it will be your doing, Maria, 

f 

won’t it? You’ll have stood sort of godmother 
to her, won’t you?” 

“Well,” snapped Mrs. Matthews, “there’s no 
harm done by doing a good turn where you 
can.” 

“I wonder if it would be a good turn to Dr. 
Darch? His friends wouldn’t think so, any- 
way,” remarked Matthews, shaking his head. 

The landlady tossed her head scornfully. 

“A lot of provincial snobs! Miss* Ritchie’s 
quite as good as they are, whoever she is. And 
you’re not to throw cold water over it, if any- 
thing’s said to you, Thomas.” 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


29 


Thomas meekly agreed not to throw the 
weight of his influence into the wrong side of 
the scale; but he retired to rest thoughtful and 
distraught. 

He was not a brilliant person, but he had, in 
the course of fifty years in London, seen reason 
in preferring to recommend a wife with a rea- 
sonable pedigree to one with antecedents abso- 
lutely unknown. 

Meanwhile Dr. Darch, who had been quite 
naturally led to suppose that Miss Ritchie was 
better known to the Matthewses than was really 
the case, was already building castles in the air 
in which she was the chatelaine. 

On the following morning he contrived to 
meet her on her way out. He was _ brushing 
his hat in the hall, an occupation which he had 
been spinning out to this end. She was on the 
third step from the bottom when he turned round. 

“We always go out at the same time,” said 
lie, as if in surprise at the coincidence. “I 
wonder whether we go in the same direction. 
Which way do you turn? I could carry your 
portfolio, if I might.” 

Miss Ritchie appeared to hesitate. At last 
she said, in her demure, low voice : 

“If — if you are going my way; I’m going to 
Portland Road station — ” 


30 


DR. D ARCH’S WIFE 


“Just the way I’m going,” said Dr. Darch. 
And he took the portfolio from her hand. “You 
teach drawing, then, I see?” said he. 

“Yes. Those are copies.” 

“Might I look?” 

“Oh, n6, they’re not good enough.” 

She was in earnest in wishing him not to open 
the portfolio, so he did not insist. As they 
walked on together he found a little difficulty in 
choosing subjects for conversation. Whether 
Miss Ritchie was still shy, or whether she was 
not naturally talkative, she gave him very little 
help. 

Not that he cared. If only he did not bore 
her, it was happiness enough to be walking by 
her side, catching every now and then a three- 
quarter view of her face as she turned to an- 
swer a question, and contenting himself for the 
rest of the time with the contemplation of the 
most delicately attractive profile he had ever 
seen. 

He saw, now that they met for the first time 
in broad daylight, that she was not so young as 
he had thought. He had at first supposed her 
to be not more than nineteen, but he now judged 
her age at about two-and-twenty. He could 
hardly tell upon what signs he based this change 
of opinion; certainly it was upon no lack if 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


31 


freshness in her beauty; rather, perhaps, on 
certain faint lines of deeper tenderness, of more 
womanly sweetness, about the mouth than he 
had noticed before. He felt that there was 
something in this woman that he wanted to 
read ; some little story worth the hearing that 
she could tell him if she chose. 

This very feeling put a leaden weight upon 
Harry Darch’s tongue; and he was ashamed of 
the idle, empty stuff he had been talking when, 
outside the station, she suddenly turned and 
held out her hand. He was to come no further. 

“Thank you,” said she, as she took her port- 
folio from him. “Good-by.” 

He hesitated. 

“I suppose — would you be offended? — you 
know me now, don’t you? "Would you let me 
take you to a concert I have tickets for — to- 
morrow afternoon?” stammered he, as he took 
her hand in his and held it for a moment. 

Miss Ritchie’s eyes brightened. There was 
something childlike about the pleasure she 
showed in the suggestion. 

“Oh, I should like to go!” cried she. Then 
her face fell. “But— I — oh, no — thank you 
very much. . I don’t think I’ll go. Thank 
you very much, very much. Good-by.” 

With a face as mournful as it had been bright 


32 


DR. DARCH’S WIPE 


the moment before, Miss Ritchie suddenly dived 
into the station, and plunged into the group 
round the booking-office. 

Much puzzled by this eccentric and inexplic- 
able behavior, Dr. Darch, . more in love than 
ever, moved slowly away. What could be the 
meaning of this abrupt change of front? That 
it arose from a sudden access of prudery he could 
hardly believe. There was more of a child’s 
disappointment than of a woman’s offended dig- 
nity about her final tumultuous refusal. 

At first he thought he would beg for the in- 
tercession of Mrs. Matthews; but he ended by 
choosing rather to wait for another meeting 
with the young lady herself. 

This,' however, did not come about so soon as 
he had expected. It was not until the following 
Thursday that he came unexpectedly upon Miss 
Ritchie, as she was entering the house by means 
of her latch-key at about six o’clock in the even- 
ing. 

“Miss Ritchie!” cried he, not attempting to 
hide his delight at the meeting, “I was afraid 
you were ill, or— or that you had gone away. I 
have been wanting to speak to you, to ask you 
why you wouldn’t come to the concert.” 

They were inside the house by this time, and 
Miss Ritchie, who had her portfolio, as usual, 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


33 


under her arm, leaned against the wall of the 
passage as he spoke to her. The setting sun 
threw its glowing light, through the window on 
the staircase, upon her white, tired face, and 
Dr. Darch perceived that she not only looked 
thin and worn, but that her eyelids were swollen 
and pink. She looked as if she had been crying. 
She answered listlessly, with a faint, weary little 
smile. 

“The concert! Oh, I had forgotten. Yes, it 
was very kind of you. But I couldn’t go, you 
know. I — I hadn’t a proper frock/’ 

“Was that all?” The doctor began to laugh 
heartily. “What does that matter? You can 
listen just as well to music in one dress as in 
another, can’t you? I think the dress you have 
on charmingly becoming.” 

Miss Ritchie shook her head. 

“Oh, no, it wouldn’t do at all. People would 
wonder — ” 

“We needn’t trouble ^about the people. Now 
will you go and put away your portfolio, .and 
come with me to have some tea first.” At 
these words a little flush of pink color came 
into Miss Ritchie’s cheeks, and into her blue 
eyes there came the same childlike look of ex- 
citement and pleasure as on the occasion of his 
last proposal. “At one of the A.B.C. . shops. 


34 


DR. D ARCH’S WIFE 


And then we can see what’s going on, and go 
somewhere. Perhaps you would like a theater 
better than a concert.” 

But at this suggestion the girl again looked 
demure. 

“No,” said she, “I should prefer a concert, 
thank you. I love music. And — and my people 
were strict. They didn’t approve of theaters.” 

“A concert it shall be then. Don’t be long.” 

“Oh no, oh no, I won’t,” 

The girl flew up the stairs wilh the alacrity 
of a child; and Dr. Darch, in an ecstas} r of im- 
patience, waited for her outside his sitting-room 
door, studying the amusement column of the 
paper. 

When Miss Ritchie reappeared she looked 
radiant with delight. The traces of tears only 
gave her face an added look of tenderness and 
pathos, and the change she had made from a 
large hat to a small one allowed Dr. Darch to 
see more of the glory of 1 her soft hair. 

“I hope I haven’t kept you long waiting,” 
said she. “But of course I couldn’t go to a 
concert in a large hat. It makes the people 
behind so angry.” 

Dr. Darch agreed, and told her he was glad 
to And her so considerate. It did strike him as 
a little curious that a girl unaccustomed to 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


35 


theater-going should think of this; but he as- 
cribed the fact to the superiority of her intelli- 
gence, and was charmed by it. 

They had a discussion, as they went down 
Charlotte Street, as to the particular concert to 
be patronized. The London season was nearly 
#over, and there was not much choice of musi- 
cal entertainments. On the other hand, Miss 
Ritchie was delighted with every suggestion. 
Plainly he had to deal with no jaded amuse- 
ment-seeker. All the difficulty he had previ- 
ously felt in keeping up a conversation with her 
had disappeared. She listened to every sugges- 
tion, commented on it, in agreement always. 
Never had Dr. Darch had such a charming 
listener. 

At last he suddenly stopped. 

“But we are forgetting all about the tea,” 
said he. “I’m hungry. Aren’t you?” 

A sudden pallor came over her face which 
smote him to the heart. He guessed that this 
was a delicate subject, and he at once hailed a 
hansom, and directed the driver to take them to 
Piccadilly. 

“There’s a shop where we can have tea, close 
to St. James’s Hall,’” said he, “and that’s the 
place for us, evidently.” 

Miss Ritchie was delighted with the proposal, 


36 


DR. D ARCH’S WIFE 


delighted with the tea, delighted with the con- 
cert, delighted with everything. She listened 
docilely to the music, looking like Saint Cecilia 
with her serene face upturned, and her pretty 
lips parted. Then she listened to Dr. Darch’s 
criticisms, and showed that she considered them 
profound. And his thoughts flew back involun-* 
tarily to the concerts he had attended with his 
step-mother and Nance, where it was Nance 
who criticised, and he who had to applaud her. 
He was human enough to like the present ar- 
rangement better. 

When the concert was over they walked home 
together, not talking very much, but both happy 
and light-hearted, and inclined to tender senti- 
ment. Both were rather reserved, and both 
were sorry when the moment came for saying 
good-night and good-by. 

This was in the hall of the house. 

‘ May I light your candle for you?” asked 
Dr. Darch. 

“No, thank you. I can see a light down- 
stairs, and I must go and tell Mrs. Matthews 
where I have been. She will think it strange 
that I should be out so late,” said Miss Ritchie. 

The doctor held her hand for a moment as he 
wished her good-night. 

“Where shall we go next?” said he. “We 


DR. DARCH’S WIRE 


37 


shall have plenty of choice on Saturday, you 
know.” 

But Miss Ritchie shook her head and laughed, 
and, without making any promise, wished him 
good-night and left him. 


CHAPTER FOUR 
“i will” 

It became Dr. Darch’s regular custom to 
carry Miss Ritchie’s portfolio as far as Portland 
Road station every morning, and to meet her 
there at five in the afternoon. More often than 
not they then had tea at a confectioner’s; and 
quite three evenings a week they spent in one or 
other of the concert-rooms of the W est End. 

Dr. Darch liked music with a passive liking, 
but he enjoyed those evenings as he had never 
enjoyed anything before. As for his beautiful 
companion, she was always the same. Sweet, 
happy, gentle, pleased with the smallest atten- 
tion, grateful for a glass of lemonade, or for a 
flower that cost a penny; making no effort to 
entertain him, but always ready with a sympa- 
thetic ear for anything he might have to say. 
He began to feel sure that this was the life- 


38 • 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


companion he would choose, this amiable, affec- 
tionate creature who was never out of temper, 
and whose nature was as sunny as her face was 
beautiful. 

On Sundays he took her to church, and it was 
on one of these occasions that he let the first 
word escape him of the wish which had been 
forming in his heart. 

They were coming out of the Abbey, through 
the cloisters, and Miss Ritchie had been a good 
deal impressed by the sermon. 

“I like to hear the Dean preach,” she re- 
marked pensively. “He always makes me wish 
I were better.” And she sighed. 

“Well, you’re not so very wicked, are you?” 
said Dr. Darch, bending down, as he now had 
a habit of doing, for an affectionate look into 
her face. 

“We are none of us as good as we ought to 
be, I suppose,” said she sententiously. “I’m 
quite sure I’m not. I’m always wanting to do 
things I oughtn’t to do. Now, for instance, I 
want to stay in London, while I’ve got to go 
into the country.” 

“Got to go away?” exclaimed Dr. Darch. 

Miss Ritchie nodded. 

“Yes. Up into Yorkshire. I’ve got an offer 
of an engagement there, too good to lose.” 


PR. D ARCH’S WIFE 


39 


There was a pause. 

“Have-you quite settled it?” asked the doctor 
in a dry voice. 

“Yes.” 

“When are you going?” 

“Some time next week.” 

The doctor had stopped; but she walked on, 
and he was obliged to follow. 

“And you’re not glad to go?” asked he in a 
low voice. 

“No.” 

“Why not?” 

A pause. ♦ 

“I should have been glad — three weeks ago.” 

“Three weeks ago ! Just before I saw you for 
the first time?” 

“Yes.” 

“You don’t care for teaching, do you?” 

“Not very much. But there’s nothing else 
for me to do.” 

“Isn’t there? I could suggest something. 
Would you care to be a country doctor’s wife?” 

She stopped short, and began to laugh nerv- 
ously. Then she hurried on again. By this 
time they were out of the abbey walls, in the 
crowded street outside. 

“Well?” said Dr. Darch hoarsely. 

He had seized her arm, and was piloting her 


40 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


through the crowd, in a state of delirious excite- 
ment. 

“I — I don’t know whether I should or not. 
I — I should for some things, but for others — I 
should be afraid!” 

Dr. Darch looked down into her face, which 
was flushed, and right into her eyes, which were 
luminous with excitement. 

“What things would you like it for? Do you 
care for me?” 

“Oh, yes, I do. You are always kind. Bufc 
I wonder — whether you would be if you marri d 
me. People change then.”’ 

“1 shouldn’t, dear. Would you?” 

“Ah, I don’t know.” 

“I’ll risk it, if you will.” 

“What will your people say to your marrying 
a stranger?” 

“What will yours?” 

“Oh, I’ll take you to see them, and you shall 
hear for yourself.” 

Now Dr. Darch was glad of this proposal, 
though he was rather surprised by it, as this 
was the first reference she had made to her 
friends. 

Two days later she took him to a house in 
Maida Yale, where she introduced him as her 
fiance to an elderly gentleman and his wife, her 


DR. D ARC IT’S WIFE 


41 


uncle and aunt, who were formally courteous, 
but not particularly cordial, and in whose august 
presence neither Dr. Darch nor Claudia cared to 
stay long. 

u I can see now why you liked better to earn 
your own living than to stay with your rela- 
tions,” said Harry, as they left the house. 
“They look as if they’d never been young, and 
as if they could have no sympathy with any one 
who was.” 

“Well, uncle’s been a solicitor. Don’t you 
think all lawyers get to look like that?” said 
Miss Ritchie. 

Dr. Darch neither knew nor cared. He was 
glad to be able, in that awkward explanatory 
letter to his stepmother, to speak of his future 
wife as the niece of Mr. and Mrs. John Williams 
of Crescent House, Maida Yale, but beyond that 
he did not care. 

It delighted him to find that Claudia was as 
anxious to be married “without any fuss” as he 
himself was. She made a little moan about not 
having a trousseau; but was easily comforted 
by his assurance that it would be much better 
fun for them to go shopping together in Paris. 

This prospect pleased her greatly. She had 
been to Paris, but she was teaching then, she 
said, and had not seen much. 


42 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


Dr. Darch had already had three weeks of his 
holiday, and as he could not well extend it much 
beyond the six weeks he had arranged for, he 
begged Claudia to marry him as soon as the 
necessary fortnight’s notice had expired. She 
agreed to this, as she agreed to everything, and 
at the end of the two weeks, during which he 
saw less of her than % before, as she had to go 
into the country for a few days to say good-by 
to another aunt and uncle, they were married 
in the quietest possible manner, at Marylebone 
Church. 

It was on a Saturday morning, and Dr. Darch 
had arranged that they should start for Paris by 
the eight-fifteen train from Charing Cross. 

As they came out of the church, she in her old 
black frock, and he, to keep her in countenance, 
in traveling suit of tweed, he asked her what she 
would like to do to fill up the time. 

Would she have some luncheon at a restaurant 
and then go to a picture-gallery? 

Claudia, whose eyes were very bright and 
whose face was glowing with jexcitement, 
shrugged her shoulders impatiently. 

“Not a picture-gallery,” said she. “It’s 
Saturday. There’s a matinee at the ‘Oxford.’ 
Let’s go there!” 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


43 


CHAPTER FIVE 

A FIRST CONFESSION 

Dr. Darch stared at his newly-made wife 
in perplexity as she made this astonishing sug- 
gestion. 

“ ‘The Oxford’ !” exclaimed he. “Don’t you 
know that it is a music-hall? If your people 
were so strict that they wouldn’t let you go to 
a theater, they would have thought a music-hall 
an awful place!” 

Claudia turned her bright, sweet face to him 
and laughed with the delight of a child. 

“Ah, but then I was only a girl. But now 
I’m a married woman. A married woman can 
go any where with her husband, can’t she?” 

“Oh, oh, yes, I suppose so,” assented Harry 
rather dubiously. “But wouldn’t it be better 
for you to put off your first visit for a little 
while, and finish your packing first?” 

Claudia’s face fell. 

“I haven’t any packing to finish,” she said 
dolorously. “I haven’t anything to pack. But 


44 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


of course I can sit and look at my little trunk 
till it’s time to start, if you like!” 

And on her pretty face Dr. Darch saw the 
first sign of a pout. Of course he gave way. 

. To “The Oxford” accordingly they went; and 
Dr. Darch, after a glance at the bills, and at 
the photographs of large and lovely serio-comic 
ladies which were calculated to astonish the un- 
sophisticated mind, engaged a box. 

They saw the usual music-hall entertainment, 
ancient, vulgar, and supremely dull. But Claudia 
was delighted with every item : with the illiterate 
troupe of mountebanks, whose fun consisted in 
knocking each other about ; with the male Ameri- 
can “Variety Artiste,” whose “wheezes” might 
have made a coal-heaver blush (Claudia said he 
was very funny, but that she couldn’t catch all 
that he said) ; with the brazen, buxom beauty, 
who sang about the “Boys”; with the perform- 
ing dogs, whose antics Harry found peculiarly 
distressing. He was thankful to find that she 
drew the-Jine at the terrible person in “evening- 
dress” who bawled a so-called patriotic song 
which would have been derided in the nurs- 
ery. 

“I don’t like that man,” said Claudia, turn- 
ing round to address Harry with a frown, after 
the first verse had been bawled to its close. 


DR. D ARCH’S WIFE 


45 


And Harry could say quite fervently : “Neither 
do I.” 

But for the rest, she enjoyed herself unre- 
servedly, with just the same open, child-like 
pleasure that she had shown at Westminster 
Abbey and at St. James’s Hall. 

Hr. Darch was amused, a little puzzled, a lit- 
tle sorry ; not at an absence of prudery, which 
was a good thing rather than a bad one, but at 
the fact that she enjoyed herself so heartily, 
throwing herself so absolutely into the pleasure 
of the entertainment that she seemed to forget 
that the man who sat in the chair behind her 
was her newly-wedded husband. 

Dr. Darch sat so far back in the box that he 
had no view of the floor of the house. But 
Claudia, who sat right in front, in spite of his 
suggestion that she should put her chair back a 
little, could see all over the house. He noticed 
that his young wife’s eyes were directed again 
and again to a particular spot, and he presently 
came forward to see what it was that had at- 
tracted her attention. Two young men, the one 
long of hair and flowing of tie, the other better 
dressed, but with a certain indefinable air of 
superior Bohemianism, were more occupied 
with Claudia than with the performers on the 
stage. Something in the way in which they 


46 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


looked at her made Dr. Darch ask his wife 
abruptly : 

“Do you know those people?” 

“What people?” asked Claudia quite sweetly. 

“Those two men at the back. The one with 
the red tie and the bilious-looking one?” 

Claudia looked down steadily, and shook her 
head. 

“No,” said she, “I don’t know them. Though,” 
she added ingenuously, “they look at me as if 
they knew me. I suppose I’m like somebody 
they do know.” 

And after a steady look at them through the 
glasses her husband had procured for her, she 
turned her attention smilingly to the stage. 

Dr. Darch was not suspicious ; he was hardly 
uneasy. But there was something in the glances 
the young men continued to send in the direc- 
tion of his wif<^ and in those they then exchanged 
with each other, which annoyed him and made 
him present^ insist on his wife’s changing her 
seat for one where. she could be less seen. She 
was rather disappointed at having to move back, 
but she was as sweet, as submissive as usual. 

When they left the .building together at the 
close of the performance, Claudia was at her 
best and brightest; so full of comments upon 
the afternoon’s pleasure, so affectionately grate- 


DR. DARCH’s WIFE 


47 


ful for his kindness, that the uneasy feeling he 
had for a moment harbored entirely disappeared. 
She looked rather tired, he thought, as she leaned 
back in her chair at Frascati’s, where they had 
gone to have something to eat. He told her so, 
but she drew herself upright at once, and denied 
the accusation warmly. 

“Tired! Too tired to cross to-night!” cried 
she with a burst of fresh energy. “Oh, no, no. 
Don’t let’s waste any more time than we can 
help in London, when there’s Paris to be seen! 
I want you to take me to ‘The Eden’ to-morrow 
night.” 

Dr. Darch felt a little shock. 

“ ‘The Eden’!” said he. Then, as Claudia 
blushed a little with the consciousness that she 
was found out, he added quickly, before she 
could have time to recollect herself: “You’re 
not quite such a novice at theater-going as you 
made me think, then?” 

But Claudia was only slightly taken at a dis- 
advantage. She laughed, she blushed with such 
pretty, modestly guilty confusion, as she explained 
that she had been once to “The Eden,” but had 
been told it would shock English people dread- 
fully to say so, that her husband could not be 
seriously angry at the trifling deception. 

Graver doubts than these, however, obtruded 


48 


DR. D ARCH’S WIFE 


themselves upon Dr. Darch’s unwilling mind in 
the course of the next twenty-four hours. 

Claudia was sweeter, more fascinating, more 
adorable than he had ever dreamed a woman 
could be, but she was not the innocent girl he 
had supposed. 

There was a scene; and Claudia, with the 
tears raining down her face, confessed that there 
was one thing she had omitted to tell him. She 
had been, not a girl, but a widow, when he mar- 
ried her; and she added, with tearful earnest- 
ness, that he had only got to ask her uncle and 
aunt, and they would tell him so. 

“Why didn’t you tell me before?” asked Dr. 
Darch, who, straightforward and truthful him- 
self, hated the very shadow of deceit. 

“He was so unkind, my husband was so un- 
kind, that I have always tried to forget it,” 
sobbed Claudia. “I’m very, very sorry I didn’t 
tell you before. But I didn’t know, I didn’t 
think, indeed, that* you wouldn’t have married 
me if you’d known. Widows do marry. What 
harm was there in it?” 

Dr. Darch looked at her with something like 
terror. That there was harm in the mere fact 
of concealing from him such a fact as a former 
marriage evidently did not occur to her. And 
he perceived in a flash that the idea of marriage 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 49 

which he had cherished, of a state in which the 
husband at least should know his wife’s every 
thought, was one which he waS'not to" realize. 

On the whole, however, the destruction of this 
ideal fabric gave him, in these first days of their 
married life, little concern. She told him a clear, 
circumstantial story of her marriage with a cross- 
grained, hard-fisted elderly solicitor, when she 
herself was only seventeen. She told him that 
his name was Brown, that he had had offices in 
Leadenhall Street, and a house at Hampstead. 
That he had been very mean, so that she had 
had to do the work of a servant in the house. 
And that he had died of rheumatic fever, after 
only a few months of marriage- through wait- 
ing at the corner of a street on a wet night for 
an omnibus, because he would not pay for a 
cab. She gave him a great many other details, 
and added always that Mr. and Mr» Williams 
could tell him better than she all about it. When 
he died, she added, it was found that he had 
been in serious difficulties, so that when his 
debts were paid, as she insisted they should be, 
there was nothing left for her. 

“So you can judge for yourself,” finished up 
Claudia, when she had come to the end of her* 
tale, “whether I had any reason to wish to re- 
member him!” 


50 


DR. D ARCH’S WIFE 


Dr. Darch was frowning a little. 

“But,” urged he, thinking the comment an 
odd one, “then it was his misfortune, not his 
fault, that he died so poor, and that he had to 
let you work so hard. It was poverty, not mean- 
ness. ’ ’ 

But Claudia looked as if she could not under- 
stand the difference. 

“A man ought not to marry if he can’t pro- 
vide for his wife,” she said simply. 

And Claudia’s second husband could not help 
concluding that she had made her first marriage 
for money, and had been disappointed. 

Now this was an unlovely trait in a woman’s 
character, however indulgently you might look 
upon it. But Dr. Darch was not ignorant of 
the difficulties which may surround an orphan 
girl without fortune, and it took him but a very 
little time to forgive that, as indeed he would 
have forgiven anything. The ordinary love of 
a newly married man for the bride whom he has 
deliberately chosen out of a company in which 
there is very little to choose, is a weak little rush- 
light compared with the passion he felt for this 
beautiful woman whom he had met in extraor- 
dinary and romantic circumstances. 

Claudia had that witchery which consists in 
apparent ignorance that there is such a thing 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


51 


as an art of bewitching. She never seemed to 
try to please, never certainly exerted her wits 
to be bright and entertaining. Her charm lay 
in her womanliness, in her childlikeness; in the 
kind' solicitude with which she would sit with- 
out moving while Harry was reading, for fear 
she should disturb him by “fidgeting about”; in 
the childlike pleasure with which she threw her- 
self into any diversion, from a drive in the Bois 
to an evening at “The Folies Bergere.” 

One evening, when Harry had a headache, 
she would not let him take her out, although 
they had seats for a piece which she wanted to 
see. She insisted on sitting beside him and darn- 
ing some socks of his, making, he thought, as 
her pretty profile stood out sharply in the light, 
an ideal picture of calm, peaceful domestic life. 

And as he looked, a longing came over him to 
be back at his own quiet country fireside, with 
this beautiful angel of the hearth beside him. 

She had made him lie on the sofa, with a 
handkerchief dipped in eau-de-Cologne and water 
laid on his forehead. He half sat up, leaning 
on his elbows. 

“Claudia,” said he, in a deep voice, “will you 
mind if we go back to England — home — to- 
morrow?” 

Claudia started. In her excitement, the soft 


52 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


fair hair went dangerously near the candle, and 
Harry sprang up and laid a' caressing hand upon 
her head. 

“1’m sick of this place,” said he. “There’s 
something about it that leaves a nasty taste in 
the mouth, ' something that makes me want to 
take you away, away to our own home, my 
darling. I feel as if I wanted a breath of fresh 
air. Don’t you?” 

But on this occasion Claudia was pathetically 
frank. 

“Oh, oh, oh,” she murmured softly, as she 
buried her head in her pretty, languishing, affec- 
tionate way on her husband’s breast, “of course 
I’ll come, dear, of course I’m ready to come, 
with you.; and to see the pretty house, and the 
carriage, and the horses. But, Harry, I’ve been 
so happy here that — that I wish you could give 
up your horrid practice, dear, and that we could 
go on living here always.” 

Here was a divergence of opinion. Harry was 
for the moment a trifle dismayed, but in a few 
moments he recovered his spirits, and said buoy- 
antly and with confidence : 

“You won’t care for Paris, Claudy, when 
you’ve seen Checksfield.” 

But Claudia gave a sigh which was not so 
hopeful. 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


53 


CHAPTER SIX 

A SENSATION FOR CHECKSFIELD 

Expectation was on tiptoe in the quiet vil- 
lage where Dr. Darch had passed the greater 
part of his life concerning this bride from “be- 
hind the mountain” whom he was bringing 
home with him. 

Luckily for him, he had been able to extend 
his holiday from six weeks to ten; but even 
then, there was something which almost savored 
of the scandalous in the fact of his having wooed 
and won the lady within such a short space of 
time. And there was a sore feeling generally 
among the Checksfield ladies, young and old, 
against the young man who had found it neces- 
sary to go outside his own circle in search of a 
wife. 

Something of this Harry Darch was able to 
gather from the letters of his step-mother, who 
indeed, good lady, herself shared the feeling she 
so minutely described. Nance sent only a bald 
message of good-will, and did not write. 


54 


DR. D ARCH’S WIFE 


On the whole it was with considerable misgiv • 
ing on his own part, and of reluctance on Clau- 
dia’s, that Dr. Darch brought his beautiful wife 
to her new home at The Firs in time for dinner 
on a misty November evening. 

Everything had been got ready for them, by 
the care of Mrs. Darch and Nance, who had 
, moved into a little villa about a quarter of a 
mile away. Dr. Darch was in the highest 
spirits. He thought his old home had never 
looked so pleasant, so warm, so cozy, so inviting 
before. Claudia, also, expressed her pleasure; 
but in her candid eyes there was some look of 
disappointment which, however, her husband 
was too much preoccupied to notice. 

He took her all over the house at once, hurry- 
ing her from room to room with a comment of 
family anecdote for every corner, imagining, 
simple-hearted feJlow that he was, that the 
trifles the memory of which pleased him must 
please her also. Perhaps Claudia was tired 
after her journey: certainly she was not so 
sweet as usual; she snapped a little, and rather 
cut short the tour of inspection by saying that 
she was hungry and that she would see the 
other rooms on the following day. 

So they went down to the dining-room, where 
Claudia’s eyes took in critically every detail of 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


55 


the simply furnished apartment, the old, plain 
Chippendale sideboard, of which Harry Darch’s 
father had been so proud ; the battered dinner- 
wagon which told of long service; the ugly 
Queen Anne chairs which were another source 
of family pride; the heavy marble clock; the 
lugubrious oil paintings. Everything, down to 
the shabby carpet and well-worn hearth-rug, 
spoke of the solid, insipid respectability of the 
poorer class of English gentlemen. All was 
commonplace, ugly, and extremely good. 

Claudia . had had in her mind the country 
house of the modern stage, where the magnifi- 
cent carved oak mantel-piece always reaches to 
the lofty ceiling, and where all the fittings and 
furniture are en suite. 

If she was a little silent from temper, her hus- 
band, who was silent from excess of happiness, 
ascribed his wife’s taciturnity to fatigue, and 
certainly never guessed the real cause of it. 

A member of Claudia’s own sex, however, 
was more clear-sighted. 

Dr. Darch had just taken his wife from the 
dining-room to the drawing-room, an apartment 
which was just too old-fashioned without being 
old-fashioned enough, when there was a ring at 
the front door bell, and Mrs. Darch and Miss 
Incledon were announced. 


56 


DR. D ARCH’S WIFE 


Dr. Darcli felt nervous, and was rather sorry 
they had come so soon. But Claudia jumped 
up, delighted at the prospect of an escape from 
the long tete-a-tete in her disappointing new 
home. 

She almost ran forward to meet them, and 
this simple-mannered and unexpected welcome 
charmed both the ladies, who were, moreover, 
taken by storm by her exceeding beauty. 
Nance had taken it for granted that the de- 
scriptions of the happy bridegroom were over- 
colored; but she was forced to confess, when 
her eyes first met young Mrs. Darch’s starry 
blue ones, that here was a beauty who would 
take Checksfield by storm. 

Claudia was dressed very simply in a black 
skirt and a black and white silk blouse; and she 
regretted that, not expecting visitors, she had 
not put on something smarter. But she was 
wrong. Although her own taste, when allowed 
free indulgence, ran riot in many colors, hers 
was a beauty which looked better in simple 
clothes than in elaborate ones, in black and 
white than in colors. 

Mrs. Darch was as favorably impressed as her 
niece, in spite of the strong prejudice she had 
felt against the woman who had “taken Harry 
away” from Nance. 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


57 


She was charmed by the warmth of manner 
with which Claudia led her to a seat, after re- 
membering to ask which was the one in which 
she generally sat. And when Claudia placed 
herself on a stool at the old lady’s feet, her tri- 
umph was complete. 

“You are very kind, very kind,” said Mrs. 
Darch, smiling down into the fair face. “Nance 
said we ought to wait till to-morrow, and give 
you this one evening to settle down. But I was 
so anxious to see you — to see what you were 
like, in fact” — and the old lady smiled more 
broadly and grew red rather prettily, “that I 
really couldn’t wait.” 

“It is you who are kind,” said Claudia, in a 
caressing tone. “I feel quite guilty at having 
turned you out of your own home. Why 
couldn’t you and Miss Ineledon stay here with 
us?” 

“Oh, my dear, we should have been in the 
way. We couldn’t think of doing that, you 
know.” 

“Why not? It would have been much livelier 
for all of us,” said Claudia ingenuously. “This 
house is much too large for only two of us; and 
Harry says you’ve gone into a little house where 
you can’t turn round.” 

“Well, we don’t want to turn round very 


58 


DR. D ARCH’S WIFE 


much,” put in Nance, who had been talking to 
Dr. Darch. “If we can turn half round, our 
modest souls are satisfied. Our little rabbit- 
hutch would suit us very well if it only were 
not called ‘Holy rood.’ The name rouses ex- 
pectations which the interior hardly comes up 
to.” 

“And besides,” said Mrs. Darch, “I’m not 
such a good walker as I used to be, and I am 
now ten minutes nearer to my poor people.” 

“I must explain,” said Nance, “that mamma’s 
soul is wrapped up in woolen garments for the 
poor.” 

Claudia looked up in the old lady’s face with 
her placid, pleasant, Madonna expression. 

“I’m glad of that,” said she, ‘‘for that’s one 
of the few things I can do, to make crochet 
shawls. Only I never can find anybody to 
use them when they are made. Now Mrs. 
Darch will find me some old women to wear 
them.” 

Mrs. Darch was delighted. Nance was cool 
on the subject of her old women, but here was 
a sympathizer. She entered into an account of 
her “district,” to which Claudia listened with 
her usual placid attention; while Harry and 
Nance, at the other end of the room, over some 
souvenirs which the newly married pair had 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


59 


brought from Paris, exchanged a few words 
upon the situation. 

“She is charming. Nicer and prettier than 
you promised,’ ’ said Nance. “You see I was 
right,” she added archly. 

Dr. Darch grew red. He tried to laugh, but 
he was awkward and unready. Nance, ‘how- 
ever, was ready to put him at his ease. 

“You ought to feel grateful to me,” &aid she 
gayly, “for saving you from a great mistake. 
A mistake for'both of us,” she added quietly. 

“It is you who drove me into this,” said he. 

“And I accept the responsibility,” retorted 
Nance brightly. “I don’t think the risk is very 
great. You love her as you would never have 
loved any woman about here, whom you had 
known all your life. I believe in spontaneity in 
these things, in romance, and all that. And 
you have had to fall in with # my views, you 
see!” 

Dr. Darch looked across the room at his wife, 
who was kneeling on the stool at Mrs. Darch ’s 
feet, laughing like a child at some anecdote of 
the elder lady’s. 

“I believe,” said he gravely, “that such love 
may be stronger, at first at any rate; more head- 
long, we will say. But — ” 

“Come, it is treason to say ‘but.' I will not 


60 


DR. DAIiC I_ 


hear anything of ‘but.’ You are going to live 
happy ever after.” 

“I hope so. And if it lay with me, I can 
promise you I should. But — no, you must let 
me say it — I am afraid Claudia will find this 
place dull.” 

“We must make it as lively for her as we 
can. There are some dowagers’ dinner-parties 
looming ahead already. Though I don’t know 
whether she will consider them lively. I’m 
afraid she’s rather disappointed • in the house!” 
she added, after a moment’s pause. 

“Disappointed!” echoed Dr. Darch, in aston- 
ishment; for he had been congratulating him- 
self all the evening on the glorious change from 
lodgings and hotels. 

“Yes. We love the old things, because we 
are used to them. But when I gave a criti- 
cal look round in view of Claudia’s arrival, I 
decided that The Firs wants bringing up to 
date.” 

Harry groaned. 

“What! change the dear old furniture for 
some of your modern gimeracky things that 
won’t bear sitting on for more than a month!” 
cried he in disgust. “Nance, don’t you dare to 
put such ideas into Claudia’s head. It’s simply 
your own wickedness that suggests them. I’m 


DR. D ARCH’S WIFE 


61 


sure the child would never think of such a thing! 
I think it more likely the little thing is shy and 
overawed; she has been living — ” 

He stopped short, not wishing to confess that 
Claudia had had to live alone in dingy lodgings. 

He broke off into a laugh, and was glad of a 
diversion from the other end of the room in the 
shape of a little cry from the elder Mrs. Darch. 

“Nance!” cried she, “Harry! Isn’t Claudia 
like the picture at the end of the gallery at Sir 
George Dutton’s? The girl with the bulrushes? 
I’ve been trying to remember where I had seen 
a face just like hers before, and now I remem- 
ber.” 

“My dear mamma, you shouldn’t make us 
jump like that,” said Nance; “you’ve quite 
frightened poor Claudia.” 

All three looked at the young wife, and saw, 
to their surprise, that she did indeed look very 
white and startled. She was a little confused 
by their anxious looks, and began to laugh. 

“You — you did startle me a little,” said she, 
in a husky voice, “when you cried out. I — I 
didn’t know I was like any picture.” 

“Well, there’s no harm in it if you are, dear,” 
said Harry, as he came over to her. 

“Harry thinks you are a picture,” suggested 
Nance, as they all laughed. 


62 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


CHAPTER SEVEN 
“the girl with the bulrushes” 

If The Firs itself was a disappointment to 
Claudia, the carriage and pair which had filled 
so large a place in her imagination was a still 
greater one. Upon her first introduction to the 
conveyance which Nance Incledon called the 
omnibus, the bride’s face betrayed her feelings. 
She surveyed the antiquated vehicle and the, 
two ancient horses with too eloquent eyes. 

Dr. Darch, who was about to start on his 
round of professional calls, looked at his wife 
with a smile. 

“Why, Claudia, what’s the matter?” said he. 

Claudia tried to smile back. Then she looked 
again at the carriage.. 

“What do you call it?” asked she. 

“The carriage? Why, it’s a brougham, an 
opening brougham. You can have it either 
open or* closed. That’s the beauty of it, don’t 
you see.” 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


63 


“It’s about the only beauty it’s got,” retorted 
Claudia gloomily. “And the horses. Why 
don’t they hold up their heads?” 

Dr. Darch patted the head of one of the de- 
spised animals, and answered cheerfully, little 
guessing what a tragedy his wife was making 
of each new disappointment. 

“They hold their heads quite high enough for 
a humble country doctor. You wouldn’t have 
bearing reins used, surely!” 

“I’d have something to make them look bet- 
ter,” replied Claudia plaintively. “Or else,” 
she added, with a gleam of brightness, “I’d 
have a new pair altogether. You could Always 
sell these for cabs, you know!” 

But her husband shook his head with much 
decision. 

“No, no. We don’t treat our old servants 
like that, human or otherwise. Tom and Jerry 
were good enough for my father, and they are 
good enough for me. for the carriage, I 

don’t see what fault you have to find with it. 
It’s comfortable, very comfortable.” 

“But it isn’t smart!” 

“I do hate that word,” said the doctor. “It 
was left to the housemaids when I was a boy.” 

Claudia, who had already recovered her good- 
humor, laughed, as she answered: 


64 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


“Oh, Harry, you think the world hasn’t 
turned round once since you were a boy. And 
I believe you would go on thinking so till you 
were an old man if I’d let you.” 

Her good-humor conquered the ill-temper her 
husband was beginning to feel. 

“Perhaps I am a little slow-going,” he ad- 
mitted indulgently. “But it’s quite as well, 
madam, that you should have somebody in- 
clined that way to keep a check upon you.” 

And he jumped into the despised vehicle and 
drove off, while Claudia watched him, with a 
pout on her pretty mouth, until the brougham 
had disappeared behind the laurels and yews. 

Now if the bride was disappointed with her 
new home, it must in justice be said that she 
got over- her feeling very easily, or at least that 
she did not suffer it to affect her temper for very 
long. Having made her moan with an ingenu- 
ous frankness which amused her husband even 
while it vexed him, she set to work to make the 
best of things with her usual and undoubted 
amiability, and settled down into her new life 
with a zest which reminded Harry pleasantly 
of her delighted enjoyment of the buns and the 
concerts before the livelier joys of Paris had 
spoiled what he liked to think was ingenuous 
freshness. Having once reconciled herself to 


DR. D ARCH’S WIFE 


65 


the unpretending house and its well-worn furni- 
ture, she showed a housewifely love of cleanli- 
ness and order, and was always to be found, in 
the mornings, when Nance or Mrs. Darch would 
drop in to see her, either dusting the old Chelsea 
and Worcester with careful hands, or darning 
the chair-covers, or busy with some similar oc- 
cupation. 

Nance was unfeignedly surprised at this, and 
when they had got a little used to each other 
she frankly told Claudia so. 

“Do you know,” she said to her one day, 
when she had discovered Claudia sitting in a 
sea of muslin curtains which she was looking 
over, in preparation for her first “day,” “that I 
never thought you would be such a good house- 
wife as you are.” 

“Didn’t you?” laughed Claudia. “And why 
not?” 

“Well, I’m such a bad one myself, for one 
thing,” replied Nance, “that I suppose I can’t 
understand the virtues I don’t possess any trace 
of. But for another thing, I thought you— 
well, I must say it — too pretty to interest your- 
self in making the best of old curtains and table- 
cloths. When a woman is vei;y good-looking, I 
think one expects her to be frivolous, and is 
rather surprised, if not rather offended, to find 


66 


DR. D ARCH'S WIFE 


that she isn’t. It seems rather hard that a 
woman should have beauty and the domestic 
virtues too. It isn’t fair on the others.” 

They were both laughing by the time Nance 
came to the end of her speech, and Claudia 
was blushing too, in that pretty ingenuous way 
which made her seem so much younger than 
she was. 

“Aren’t you a good housekeeper?” asked she 
in surprise. “Harry always speaks of you so 
highly that I thought you were perfect in every- 
thing, and I never could understand why he 
didn’t marry you himself. You wouldn’t have 
him, I suppose,” she went on composedly. “It 
must have been that.” 

It was Nance’s turn to grow red, and Clau- 
dia, getting quite excited, clapped her hands in 
enthusiasm at her own acuteness. 

“I was sure of it!” she cried, standing up 
with a lace curtain hanging about her, looking 
supremely pretty and charming. “I said to my- 
self when I first saw you that Harry could never 
have seen so much of you without falling in love 
with you.” 

“Oh no, oh no, he didn’t do that; indeed, 
indeed he didn’t!” said Nance, much shocked. 

“Nonsense!” cried Claudia good-humoredly. 
“If you said ‘oh no’ all day I shouldn’t believe 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 67 

you. But of course you, who are so merry and 
so witty, could never settle down with poor dull 
old Harry!” 

But at this speech, quite innocently uttered, 
Nance felt a thrill of surprise and horror. 

“Dull!” exclaimed she. “You think him dull! 
Oh, you don’t mean it.” 

“Don’t I, though! I don’t mind what Isay 
to you, because I know you wouldn’t make mis- 
chief for the world. But all good people are 
dull, I think, and Harry’s very good; I didn’t 
think men ever were so good as he is, so inno- 
cent, and all that. But to see him choose out 
the things to read in the paper shows you how 
lively he is. Just the things nob®dy else could 
care a pin about! I never say so to him, of 
course; but it’s a relief to tell somebody.” 

“Well, I hope you won’t ever tell anybody 
else,” said Nance, who found these confidences 
rather disturbing. 

“Of course I shan’t,” said Claudia simply. 

Nance was puzzled. She liked Claudia and 
admired her enormously. She had generously 
hoped that Harry had got the very wife of all 
others to suit him perfectly. But this calm 
absence of jealousy on the young wife’s part, 
this frank admission in the early days of mar- 
riage that her husband bored her, were signs 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


OS' 

which made clever Nance anxious and uneasy. 
She told herself that she was making a ridicu- 
lous fuss about a trifle, and that there was no 
fear that a good fellow like Harry would not in 
the end gain complete command of his wife’s 
heart ; but she could not talk herself into quite 
the calm she wished for. 

If Nance Incledon was uneasy about the mar- 
riage, nobody else was. Dr. Darch’s adoration 
of his wife grew stronger with every discovery 
which showed her adaptability, her amiability, 
her power of gaining the good-will of man and 
woman. Having conquered her husband, his 
step-mother, the girl who loved him, she 
straightway ♦proceeded to take by storm his 
friends and acquaintances, who one and all 
declared that, if he had gone far afield for a 
wife, he had known what he was about, and 
who prophesied that this marriage would 
greatly improve his professional position. 

. For young Mrs. Darch was “taken up” im- 
mediately by all the “best people.” The child- 
like pleasure, the habit of being easily pleased, 
the knack of sympathetically listening rather 
than talking much herself, these - charms were 
as effective down in Sussex on the dull county 
people as they had been on Harry and the 
Matthewses in her London lodging. The 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 69 

knack, too, which she had, if not of dressing 
in the very best possible taste, of wearing her 
clothes with an air of unconscious witchery 
which distinguished her from other women, had 
something to do with her success. If she some- 
times wore colors that did not harmonize, or 
feathers that were aggressive, the fault was put 
down to Paris, where they came from, and she 
was forgiven. 

“French taste is so much more outre than 
ours,” said her critics indulgently. 

Old Lady Dutton, the reigning grande dame 
of the neigborhood, had set her seal of approval 
on the newcomer. She had called upon Clau- 
dia, found that youtfg lady delightfully willing 
to be patronized, and had no hesitation in pro- 
nouncing her “charming.” She had made this 
report to Sir George, a great connoisseur in 
pretty women, who was thenceforth eager to 
see the new beauty, being of the openly ex- 
pressed opinion that the ladies of the neighbor- 
hood were all “ugly, d — d ugly, by Jove!” 

Sir George was an admiral, and dated from 
days of chivalry, but not of refinement. 

But an unhappy fatality seemed to hang over 
Dutton Hall as far as the new beauty was con- 
cerned. Invitation after invitation was enthu- 
siastically given by Lady Dutton, enthusiasti- 


70 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


cally accepted by Mrs. Darch. Yet something 
always happened at the last moment to prevent 
Claudia’s going to the Hall. . 

Thus, on Lady Dutton’s “day,” when Claudia 
was going to return her call, the doctor’s young 
wife had such a bad headache that she could 
not stir from the house. When she did call, 
Lady Dutton was not at home, and when 
Claudia and her husband had accepted an in- 
vitation to dine at the Hall, a feeling of faint- 
ness and giddiness came over Claudia as she 
was dressing; and although her husband was 
cruel enough to assure her that there was noth- 
ing the matter with her, and that she would be 
all right when she started, Claudia persisted in 
her assurances that she was too ill to go, so 
that her husband was at last obliged to go 
without her. 

“It isn’t me they want, but you,” he said 
plaintively, as he bade her good-by. 

Happily Claudia recovered when he had left 
her sufficiently to pass a pleasant evening by the 
drawing-room fire with a translation of one of 
Guy de Maupassant’s novels. Claudia loved 
Paris, but, except for a little colloquial slang, 
she did not understand much French. In the 
meantime Dr. Darch had called in the village 
for his stepmother and e lSTance, who had also 


DR. D ARCH’S WIFE 


71 


been invited by Lady Button, and the “omni- 
bus” had deposited its load at the Hall. 

There was a tine flavor of antiquity still left 
about Sir George Dutton’s mansion, -which gave 
you the impression that if it had not been sacked 
by Cromwell’s soldiery while holding out for 
Charles the First, it ought to have been. The 
red-brick Tudor front seemed to teach you his- 
tory, the ivy to bristle with legends. It was a 
show-place, with an afternoon in the week set 
apart for the gaping visitors, who were driven 
through the long rooms and galleries in flocks 
on Friday afternoons by the supercilious house- 
keeper, who was a great deal grander than Lady 
Dutton, and not half so tolerant of giggling, 
scoffing, holiday humanity as that lady would 
have been. 

Dinner took place in the grand banqueting 
hall, a stately apartment in which, as Nance 
said, you felt you ought to eat nothing less than 
peacocks, and which was never properly warmed. 

Nance wondered, as the sepulchral solemnity 
of the terrible repast chilled her spirits, whether 
Claudia had heard something about these enter- 
tainments, and had been indisposed of malice 
aforethought. 

The ladies, of whom there were some seven or 
eight, looked a very small party when they had 


72 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


retreated from the dining-room, and dispersed 
themselves about the long range of rooms which 
were the pride of the place. 

Two or three of them, and among them Nance, 
strayed into the picture-gallery. The electric 
light had recently been installed in the place, 
and the visitors were curious to see the pictures 
in this new aspect. Nance was by herself in the 
rear of Lady Dutton and another dowager. 
Turning round to get a view of the effect of the 
whole room by the new light, she was struck by 
the picture at the end, “The Girl with the Bul- 
rushes.’ J She had seen the picture before, 
months ago; but she had had time to forget 
it; at least she had carried no vivid remem- 
brance of the girl’s face away with her. 

But now that she knew Claudia, and espe- 
cially since her attention had been called to the 
resemblance between “The 'Girl with the Bul- 
rushes” and the doctor’s young wife, she was 
even more struck by this likeness than Lady 
Dutton herself had been. Nance went quickly 
down the galley, and stopped in front of the 
picture, criticising it feature by feature, and 
marveling more and more at the closeness of 
the resemblance. 

She was still doing so when Captain Dutton, 
Sir George’s only son, came into the gallery. 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


73 


He was a little, pale, sandy man, with an 
'habitual air of dissipation and fatigue; and 
Nance disliked him exceedingly. He, how- 
ever, did not return the sentiment, and ascribed 
her coolness toward him to coquetry. 

“Comparing the picture with the new beauty, 
Miss Incledon?” inquired he, as he strolled up. 
“It’s the proper thing to do now. Some say it’s 
just like Mrs. Darch ; some say it doesn’t do her 
justice. Now your opinion will be better worth 
having than most people’s, as you have seen so 
much of her. Is it like her or not?” 

“It’s very like her* very like her indeed. One 
would almost think she must have sat for the 
picture!” said Nance. 

At this Captain Dutton had such a fit of laugh- 
ter that for a few moments he could not speak. 
Nance, who thought him rude and tiresome, was 
moving away in the direction of the other ladies, 
when he took the hint and instantly recovered 
his powers of speech. 

“I beg your pardon — I can’t help laughing. 
That’s what my mother says. But to any one 
who knows, as I do, who did sit for that picture, 
it does seem rather funny to hear you all insist- 
ing that it was Mrs. Darch. I assure you it 
makes me very anxious to see the lady, very 
anxious indeed. But she wouldn’t be pleased 


74 


DR. DARCH ’S WIFE 


if she were told who it was she was supposed to 
resemble so closely!” 

, “ Who was it, then?” asked Nance abruptly, 
much annoyed by his tone and manner. 

“Oh, nobody you would ever have heard of, 
Miss Incledon. A regular artist’s model, a very 
well : known one, who sits for saints— It’s quite 
a special line with her, and Puritan maidens, 
and all that kind of thing.” 

“An artist’s model!” 

“Yes. Not an ordinary one. Rather an ex- 
traordinary one, Well, notorious, in faet. ” 

“With that face! It doesn’t seem possible!” 

“Well, now you see why I laughed when you 
said it must have been Mrs. Darch.” 

“Oh, I don’t think I said that!” said Nance 
hastily. 

“Something very like it, really!” 

“Well, of course I was wrong, ridiculously 
wrong, that’s all.” 

At that moment Dr. Darch came, with another 
man, into the gallery. 

“Let’s ask him what he thinks of it,” said 
Captain Dutton. 

“But don’t tell him that story. He wouldn’t 
like it,” said Nance quickly. 

“Why, no; of course not,” said Captain Dut-- 
ton. 


DR. D ARCH’S WIFE 


75 


But when Dr. Darch, after looking at the pict- 
ure, declared in his turn that he should have 
thought his wife had sat for the picture, Captain 
Dutton had very great difficulty in restraining 
his mirth, and he cast at Nance a glance which 
worried her very much, as it seemed to imply 
more than it was really meant to do. 

“If Claudia were here,” she said coolly, “I’ve 
no doubt we should see differences which we 
can’t see without comparing the real face with 
the picture.” 

“I’ve no doubt of that either,” chimed in Cap- 
tain Dutton. “But the thing is we can’t get 
her here. Mrs. Darch seems to avoid the place 
as if we all had the smallpox.” 

“There is no avoidance about it,” said Dr. 
Darch sharply. “Why should she avoid it? I 
will bring her to call to-morrow.” 

Dr. Darch, who knew nothing of what had 
passed before he came up on the subject of the 
picture, felt that there was something a little 
wrong somewhere. And without the least sus- 
picion of what the reason was, he made up his 
mind that, ill or well, his wife should put in an 
appearance at the Hall on the following day. 


76 - 


dr. darch’s wife 


CHAPTER EIGHT 

THE PICTURE AND* THE FACE 

When Dr. Darch, ia no very good humor, 
reached home and found Claudia looking as 
well as ever, and lounging very comfortably 
in a reclining-chair, she saw at once that some- 
thing was wrong, and sprang up to meet him, 
and to twine her arms affectionately about him. 

“Well, dear, how did you enjoy yourself? 
You don’t look as if it had been very lively!” 

“It was not. It was very dull. And it was 
all your fault.” 

“My fault !” 

“Yes. You know very well that Lady Dut- 
ton gave the dinner-party on your account, and 
that everybody was only anxious to see you. So 
that your staying away — and for nothing at all 
too ! For nobody seemed to think you could be 
so ill as not to have come if you had chosen — ” 

“Oh, Harry, how unkind! Why, I was — ” 

“You would have been well enough to go to 
a theater, I’m quite sure. In fact, in Paris you 
have insisted upon going when you have had a bad 
headache and would have been better at home.” 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


77 


“All, well, but then that did me good! It 
wouldn’t make anybody better to sit out a dull 
dinner-party. You yourself have often told me 
a course of Lady Dutton’s dinner-parties would 
make an idiot of a ’perfectly sane man quicker 
than anything else you knew of!” 

“That has nothing to do with it. Nobody 
goes to a dinner-party as a pleasure, but as a 
duty. Especially a doctor. And a doctor’s 
wife has to do these things for her husband’s 
sake. I thought you were going to be a help to 
me,- Claudia; and really you, who are not so 
used to them as I am, would find something to 
amuse you even at one of the Hall dinner-par- 
ties. The house is one of the best in this part 
of England, and is something to be seen. And 
they are awfully kind people, anxious to make 
a fuss over you.”- 

“You said Sir George was deaf, and his son 
was horrid!” objected Claudia, quite gently. 
“But I will go next time, if it kills me.” 

“You will go to-morrow, to call with me,” 
said Dr. Darch firmly. “I told Lady Dutton I 
should bring you. Arid you can see the picture 
of yourself — it is nothing more nor less. Won’t 
that interest you?” 

Claudia hesitated, then shrugged her shoulders. 

“I don’t suppose it is really like me,” she said. 


78 


DR. D ARCH’S WIFE 


“Well, anyhow, you’ve got to come. There 
seems to be an impression that you don’t want 
to come, for some reason or other. And people 
will be wondering — ” 

Claudia turned to him quickly. 

“What nonsense!” said she scornfully. “You 
will see people talk such nonsense in the coun- 
' try.” 

Dr. Darcli had gained his point, as indeed he 
meant to do. 

On the following day Claudia, dressed with 
especial care, started with her husband to -call 
on Lady Dutton. 

“You’ve got your hair done in a different 
way,” said Harry, in rather a disapproving 
voice, as he noticed that it was rolled right 
back off her face instead of being arranged in 
the usual madonna waves. 

“Yes. Don’t you like it? I thought it looked 
more dignified-.” 

“But it takes away from the resemblance to 
the picture, which we all want to compare you 
with.” 

“Does it? Well, I couldn’t know how the 
woman’s hair in the -picture was dressed, 
could I?” 

“Can’t you go upstairs and change it back 
again?” 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


79 


“Oh, no, it would take too long. The like- 
ness can’t be so very strong if it depends upon 
such a trifle as that!” 

Like all gentle women, Claudia could be in- 
flexibly obstinate when she chose. And though 
her husband tried to coax her into yielding, she 
carried her point. 

Lady Dutton was very gracious, in spite of 
her disappointment of the night before. But 
then Claudia was abjectly humble and apolo- 
getic, and contrived so deftly to suggest in her 
manner an air of languor after indisposition, 
that one felt it would be brutal to say anything 
very harsh to her. 

Captain Dutton, too, who now met her for the 
first time, and Sir George, who had seen her out 
driving, but had not before spoken to her, did 
their utmost to make a good impression upon 
their beautiful visitor. 

Of course “The Girl with the Bulrushes” was 
mentioned at an early moment. 

Claudia turned with vivacity to Captain Dutton. 

“Everybody tells us about this picture,” said 
she with exasperation. “Is it really like me?” 

“Come and see,” said he. 

He led her upstairs to the long gallery, which 
was lighted from the roof. “The Girl with the 
Bulrushes” was in a flood of warm light. 


80 


DR DARCH’S WIFE 


“Now,” said he, “which is the picture that is 
like you?” 

Claudia looked round, with eyes in which 
there was a sort of shyness. There was a 
silence while she did so. Captain Dutton 
laughed a little. 

“.Can’t you find it?” said he. 

“Why,” said she at last, “I suppose it must 
be that one!” Then, after a moment’s pause, 
during which Captain Dutton looked at her 
rather cynically, she made a rush forward and 
placed herself under Death the picture. 

“Now, ’’said she defiantly, “is it, like me or 
not?” 

Captain Dutton surveyed her critically, with- 
out looking up at the canvas. 

“It doesn’t do you justice,” said he at last. 


CHAPTER NINE 

REAL SYMPATHY AT LAST 

Claudia grew red and cast down her eyes 
before the steady gaze of Captain Dutton. She 
was about to move away from the position she 
had taken up under the picture when he put out 
an imploring hand, just touching the sleeve of 
her dress. 


DR. D ARCH’S WIFE 


81 


“No, don’t go. Don't move away. I haven’t 
done comparing you with the picture yet.” 

“You have compared me quite enough, ” re- 
torted Claudia, as she insisted. “It’s all non- 
sense about the pictui e. It is not like me at all. ” 

And she threw a pouting glance, out of the 
corner of her eyes, at the huge canvas, which 
was the best work that had hitherto been pro- 
duced by a clever young American artist who 
had settled in London. 

“Don’t you really think it is, just a little, 
about the — tips of the eyelashes?” asked Cap- 
tain Dutton, as he followed her and looked 
down into her face with that favorite stare of 
his which the young girls of his own rank usu- 
ally found so repellent, but which was consid- 
ered rather “fetching” in the feminine society 
which he most affected. 

Claudia shot at him a glance of astute inquiry. 
There was no disgust in her face at his boldness, 
neither, on the other hand, was there any fear. 
He saw that he might go further with safety. 

“And about the curve of the lips, you know, 
I see a striking resemblance. And — why don’t 
you wear your hair like the girl in the picture? 
I believe it would suit you down to the ground. 
You’ve just the face that style does suit, very 
innocent-looking, and saintly, arfd— ” 


82 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


Her blue eyes shot up at him a glance which, 
in his own phraseology, * 4 gave her away.” He 
stopped, and laughed; and she laughed back. 
Captain Dutton was not clever; but familiarity 
with certain types had made him shrewd in 
detecting them. He knew, in a moment, that 
young Mrs. Darch was “his style.” 

“How do you like Checksfield?” he asked 
abruptly. 

Claudia looked rather surprised by the question. 
She had expected something different, evidently. 

“Oh, I like it very much,” she answered un- 
affectedly. “Better than I thought I should.” 

“Then you’re easily pleased,” said Captain 
Dutton with a laugh. “Now,' I didn’t think 
you would be.” 

And he put his head pitifully on one side. 

“Then you’re a very bad reader of character. 
There’s nobody more easily pleased than I. As 
long as I don’t always have to do the same 
thing, I don’t mind much what it is I do.” 

“Well, here it always is the same thing, isn’t 
it?” 

“Oh, no. There’s my house to attend to, for 
one thing; and there’s always something fresh 
about that; some very little thing, perhaps, but 
still enough to amuse me. Then people come 
and see me — ”* 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


83 


“Such people!” groaned Captain Dutton. “I 
wish they were all under the sea!” 

“But there’s no place in the world where all 
the people are nice,” pursued Claudia earnestly. 
“If you meet a few you can like, it is as much 
as you can expect anywhere. Don’t you think 
so?” 

“Well, now tell me who there is you can like 
about here?” 

“Well, in the first place there’s—” 

She paused for an instant, and Captain Dut- 
ton caught her up instantly. 

“In the first place there’s your husband. Do 
you like him?” 

Claudia burst out laughing. But she ap- 
peared to take the question seriously. 

“My husband! Of course I do. What a 
question!” 

“There’s no of course about it. Some women 
don’t like their husbands. And some people 
don’t like your husband. I don’t, for one.” 

This was rather daring; but Captain Dutton 
felt sure enough of his position to venture it. 
The moment he had said it he knew that the 
ground was still firm under his feet. 

“Don’t you?” said Claudia, with an amused 
giggle. “Why not?” 

“Well, he’s had more luck than he deserves, 


DR. D ARCH’S WIFE 


84 

for one thing; and, for another, why he isn’t 
exactly the sort of fellow who keeps you in roars 
of laughter all day, is he now?” 

“He’s very kind,” said Claudia contempla- 
tively; “and good people never are very lively, 
are they?” 

“Aren’t you good?” 

Again Claudia shot at him an inquiring glance. 

“Oh, yes, pretty good, I hope. But then 
I’m not lively.” 

“You’ll be more than lively enough for 
Darch, I expect!” 

“ What do you mean by that?” 

“Oh, you know. Women as handsome as 
you don’t spend all their time sewing buttons 
on their husband’s gloves, and weighing legs of 
mutton.” 

Claudia looked at him with the same sweet, 
amused smile. There was a little flush of pleas- 
ant excitement in her cheeks. This flirtation 
with the sort of man she was not unused to 
was* quite an unexpected and pleasant stimulant 
in her new and rather quiet life. 

“You seem to think you know more about me 
than I do myself,” she said ingenuously. “Yet 
you have never met me before?” 

There was perhaps the least trace of anxiety 
in the question. 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


85 


“Never before. I wish I had,” replied Cap- 
tain Dutton with an eloquent glance. 

Again Claudia giggled and blushed like a 
schoolgirl. 

“One never meets the women one could 
really have cared about' till it’s too late!” went 
on Captain Dutton sentimentally. 

“Oh, men always say that,” retorted Claudia 
scoffingly. 

“Do you mean that it isn’t too late?” asked 
Captain Dutton with assumed innocence. 

“Why, of course it’s too late to marry me,” 
replied Claudia. 

“We might kill Darch!” murmured Captain 
Dutton. 

Again the literal-minded Claudia seemed to 
take his proposal seriously. 

“Good gracious, don’t talk like that!” she 
cried, losing her color a little. “Kill my hus- 
band indeed! And for you, too!” 

“Well, I’ll consent to let him live on one con- 
dition.” 

“Condition! The ideal” 

“It’s a very easy one. You have only to 
promise to give me your entire confidence, and 
to tell me all those things, those wishes, those 
longings, that you don’t dare to tell any one else 
about, even your paragon of a husband.” 


86 


DR. DARCIES WIFE 


Claudia looked rather frightened. 

“How do you know I have any wishes, long- 
ings?” asked she abruptly. 

“By the sympathy which exists between us, 
whether you like to admit it or not. I could 
even tell you what some of those wishes and 
longings are!” 

Captain Dutton thought it necessary to bend 
over her as he said this, and to say it in a voice 
not much louder than a whisper, close to her 
pretty pink ear. 

They had strolled out of the gallery by a nar- 
row staircase which led down into a big con- 
servatory, with a domed roof in which tall 
tropical plants grew in a dense mass. This was 
another of the sights of the place; and their 
presence there could be explained on this ground, 
if the others should come to look for them. 

But the captain said nothing about the plants, 
and Claudia did not appear to see them. She 
was too much absorbed in what seemed to her 
the first really interesting talk she had had since 
she arrived in Checksfield. 

“Well, then, tell me what they are!” she 
cried defiantly, looking very pretty with the 
sparkle of excitement in her usually placid blue 
eyes. “Tell me what wishes I tiave that I 
don’t dare to tell to my husband.” 


DR: darch’s wife 


87 


“In the first place, you wish he wouldn’t read 
to you.” 

Claudia started violently. 

“How do you know he reads to me?” she 
asked sharply. Then, as Captain Dutton began 
to laugh, she added quickly: “Oh, of course he 
told you! He must have told you!” 

“No, he didn’t. Come, when have I seen 
him for him to tell me that? I know it’s just 
the sort of thijig a man like that always does do, 
the sort of thing that drives his wife to the same 
pitch of dull idiocy he has arrived at himself.” 

She began to smile, then checked herself, and 
said severely : 

“I won’t have my husband called an idiot, 
Captain Dutton. I certainly shouldn’t have 
married an idiot!” 

“No, no, of course not. I didn’t mean that. 
Put it down to my jealousy.” 

“You have no right to be jealous.” 

“Of course I haven’t. But I can’t help it.” 

“Let’s go on with your wishes.” 

“Not my wishes, your wishes, Mrs. Darch. 
In the second place, you wish he wouldn’t talk 
to you.” 

“He never does.” 

“Well, you wish he would then. I knew he 
bored you somehow.” 


88 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


“You have no right to say my husband bores 
me.” 

“But if it’s a fact why not admit it, and make 
the best of it?” 

“I won’t admit it. I won’t admit anything!” 

“Well, you’ve admitted a good deal already. 
You see, Mrs. Darch, when at last you find your- 
self with a person who understands you, you 
confess more than you mean to do. Now I flat- 
ter myself I can read more of your mind, of 
your heart, in one of those quick looks of yours, 
in the very sweep of your eyelashes, than Darch 
would discover in a twelvemonth. But then it 
wouldn’t do for him to discover too much, would 
it?” 

“There isn’t anything for him to discover, 
Captain Dutton,” said Claudia haughtily. 

“Well, I shouldn’t care for him to discover 
that other people can appreciate his wife better 
than he can himself, understand her better, ad- 
mire her more. Do you really mean to tell me 
that he wouldn’t mind discovering that?” 

“Oh, you’re talking nonsense,” said Claudia 
flippantly. 

It was the sort of nonsense she didn’t mind 
listening to, evidently. Captain Dutton followed 
her up, as she sauntered round the hothouse, 
looking up at the spreading palms with freshly 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


S9 


feigned interest. ‘‘Are you ever allowed to 
walk out by yourself?” asked he presently. 

“Oh, I don’t know, I can’t make any appoint- 
ments,” she answered quickly, surprised into a 
sort of answer, which, the next moment, she re- 
gretted having given. Blushing more deeply 
than ever, she said, speaking in the top of her 
head, and raising her eyebrows: “Let us get 
back to the drawing-room. My husband will 
be wondering where I’ve got to;” 

Indeed there was a good deal of annoyance 
in Dr. Darch’s face when his wife and Captain 
Dutton reappeared in the drawing-room, where 
there were some other callers engaging Lady 
Dutton’s attention. Claudia, looking more 
beautiful than usual, went up to her husband 
with the most affectionate smile. 

“Why didn’t you come too, Harry?” she asked, 
as if she had been suffering from considerable 
disappointment. “The pictures are so beauti- 
ful — Only, I suppose, j^ou know them. And 
the plants — those big things like fans— Oh! 
But the picture of the girl with the reeds isn’t 
a bit like me; Captain Dutton says so!” 

“I think it is more of a compliment to the 
picture than to Mrs. Darch, certainly, to com- 
pare them,” said Captain Dutton. 

But when Claudia and her husband had driven 


90 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


away, Captain Dutton went back to the gallery, 
stood before the picture of the girl with the bul- 
rushes, and laughed quietly to himself for a 
quarter of an hour. . 

“Thought she must have sat for it, the mo- 
ment I saw her!” said he to himself, as he looked 
and laughed. “And now I’m pretty sure of it. 
Checksfield’s looking up ! There’ll be some sport 
here presently!” 


CHAPTER TEN 

THE MISTLETOE SEASON 

Dr. Darch was not in_a very good humor as 
he and his wife drove away from the Hall. 

Claudia, on the contrary, was brighter and 
sweeter than she had been when they left home. 
She began to utter enthusiastic praises of every- 
thing and everybody she had seen, of the kind- 
ness of Lady Dutton and of Sir George, of the 
beauty of the rooms, and of 'the “lovely old 
chairs and things.” 

“And the ivy! Oh, Harry, do look round and 
see how beautiful the house looks from here!” 
she added with enthusiasm. 

“Yes. I know. I’ve seen it lots of times,” 
answered Dr. Darch rather curtly. 


91 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 

“Why, Harry, you are cross!” said his wife 
with the prettiest little deprecating pout. “You 
were angry with me because I couldn’t come 
here before; you worried me into coming sooner 
than I wanted to come; and now you’re dis- 
agreeable because I enjoyed myself!” 

“No, not because you enjoyed yourself. But 
I’d better tell you frankly — because you got on 
so well with that loathsome little cad, Regie 
Dutton.” 

Claudia opened her blue eyes wide with sur- 
prise. 

“Little cad! Why, Harry, you always talk 
as if the Duttons were almost too good for this 
world. And so does everybody about here! 
I’ve often thought it quite funny. Because, 
after all, though they’re very kind and nice. 
Sir George and Lady Dutton are only quite or- 
dinary people, nothing much to look at, and with 
nothing much to say.” 

“Well, if that’s true of Sir George and his 
wife, I’m sure it’s much more true of their son. 
Yet you stayed away with him so long that 
everybody began to wonder where you’d got to.” 

“Oh, Harry, now that’s nonsense ! You know 
very well — in fact, you told me yourself that the 
place is a show place, and that every visitor is 
shown round the gallery and the hothouses as a 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


92 

matter of course. When Captain Dutton offered 
to take me, I should have looked silly if I’d said, 
‘Oh, no, thank you, I’d rather not go, please.’ 
Oh, Harry, you must see how silly you are!” 

And Claudia burst into a ripple of good-hu- 
mored laughter, and tucked her hand into her 
husband’s arm, and looked up at him with eyes 
so full of affection that it was impossible for him 
to be angry with her any longer. 

Indeed the little excitement of the visit at the 
Hall and the unexpected sj^mpathy of Captain 
Dutton agreed so well with Claudia that she was 
more charming than ever for the rest of the day. 
And Dr. Darch, who, happily for his peace of 
mind, did not know the exact source of her good 
humor, congratulated himself upon the easy tem- 
per of his wife, who could settle down as happily 
in the country as she could have done in Paris. 

And this good humor, this pleasant excitement 
which made her so charming, did not die away, 
but rather increased as the days went by, and 
the gayeties of Christmas approached. 

At a big subscription ball in aid of the local 
charities, which was one of the features of this 
season, Claudia was the acknowledged reigning 
beauty. In a gown of plain white silk, with big 
sleeves of white tulle, and no ornaments to de- 
stroy its majestic simplicity, she put all the 


DK. D ARCH’S WIFE 


93 


young girls into the shade, including Nance, 
who had herself devised this costume, and per- 
suaded Claudia to wear it, instead of the pink 
satin with green leaves, which was young Mrs. 
Darch’s own choice. 

Captain Dutton was at the ball, where he 
danced with young Mrs. Darch often enough, 
and exhibited his admiration openly enough, to 
excite some little remark in the crowd and great 
indignation in Dr. Darch. Nance, while waltz- 
ing with Harry, was quick to observe the look 
on his face, as he followed the movements of his 
wife and Captain Dutton. 

“I can’t think how she can stand that puppy 
near her!” said he, too full of his grievance to 
be reticent. 

“Oh, she doesn’t think. As long as she has a 
partner who can waltz well, she doesn’t much 
care who it is, I’m sure,” said Nance in the 
voice of a peacemaker. 

“It isn’t only waltzing. She isn’t such a great 
waltzer herself, not half so good as you, Nance. 
But she sat out one dance with that little reptile. 
Everybody will be talking about her to-morrow.” 

“No, they won’t. I’ll speak to her,” said 
Nance. “It will be much better than for you 
to say anything. You don’t want to look as if 
you were jealous!” 


94 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


If anybody had told Harry Bareli, six months 
before this, that he would ever be jealous of 
Regie Hutton, he would have looked upon the 
prophet as a fool. And these words of Nance, 
showing him to what he was descending, caused 
him to pull himself together, and to resolve to 
try to repress all sign of the annoyance he felt, 
at least until he and his wife had got home. 

Claudia either did not, or would not, see her 
husband’s too eloquent looks in her direction, 
until Captain Hutton took care to point them out 
to her. Claudia shrugged her pretty shoulders. 

“I’ll make it all right with him presently,” 
said she. “In the meantime I may as well en- 
joy myself, and forget the lecture that’s in store 
for me.” 

“But I don’t like to think I’m getting you 
into a row with the fellow,” said Captain Hut- 
ton magnanimously. “And yet I don’t know 
when I can see you without his glowering eye 
upon us.” 

“Ho you ever go to church — in the evening?” 
asked Claudia simply. 

Captain Hutton grinned. 

“Not often,” said he. “If I did, I should be 
followed about by an admiring crowd, I expect. 
But if you do, and if you want an escort home — ” 

They both laughed, and little more was said 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


95 


between them on the subject. But Claudia re- 
fused to dance with him any more, made peace 
with her husband by sliding up to him and 
speaking of “that horrid Regie Dutton,” and 
all was well. 

It excited no particular surprise in Dr. Darch 
when, on. the following Sunday evening, Claudia 
glided into the drawing-room, where he was sit- 
ting with a book, and expressed her intention of 
going to church. One service on a Sunday had 
hitherto been enough for her, certainly; but she 
had been very regular in that, so that there was 
nothing surprising in the fact that, in the coun- 
try, this taste was growing stronger. 

“I suppose you want me to go with you !” said 
he, smiling and closing his book, but only very 
languidly changing his easy position. 

“No, no, poor dear old boy; after all your 
work during the week I know you like your 
quiet Sunday to yourself. Take up your book 
again, and mind you be very well informed by 
the time I come back.” 

“Oh, but I don’t like you to go alone! Shall 
I come and meet you when you come out?” 

“No. It isn’t worth while. 1 can come back 
with Nance, if she’s there—” 

“I don’t think she ever goes in the evening 
now, though.” 


96 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


“Well, then I can come back with Harriet. I 
know she’s going. Good-by.” 

And she kissed him lovingly on the forehead 
and went quickly toward the door. 

“Mind you waif for her, then. And don’t 
come across the fields. It isn’t safe.” 

“All right, ’’laughed Claudia. “But it wouldn’t 
be lonely on a Sunday night, remember. All the 
lads and lasses are there in twos. The footpath 
will be about as deserted as Oxford Street on a 
June afternoon.” 

Claudia was not particularly pleased, on arriv- 
ing at the church porch, to meet Nance going in. 

“Why, Claudia, I didn’t think you ever came 
to church in the evening ! And without Harry, 
too!” 

“I thought the same of you. And without 
mama, too!” retorted Claudia good-humoredly. 

“I had a headache this morning, and stayed 
at home,” answered Nance. “And as Mrs. 
Wakeman came in this, evening, I left her and 
mama together, to repair my sin of omission.” 

“See you again presently. I’m going to sit 
in the choir,” said Claudia, who had a sweet 
voice, which was welcome among the singers. 

The organ was just inside the west door of 
the church, so she found this a convenient place. 
When the service was over, she was able to slip 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


97 


out almost before anybody else, T ben she turned 
quickly, not into the way home, but up a lane 
where the trees grew thickly on each side, so 
that people who were not well known to each 
other by sight could pass without mutual recog- 
nition* 

Here, not unexpectedly, she met Captain 
Dutton. 

Claudia’s manners were always modest; when 
she committed an indiscretion like the present 
one, she did it with an air of having strayed into 
it against her knowledge and inclination, of hav- 
ing been taken by surprise, as it were. This 
gave her an added charm, of which even Cap- 
tain Dutton, experienced as he was, felt the 
power. 

She seemed quite surprised at the meeting. 

“I was going home by this road,” she said. 

“You can’t get to The Firs this way,” said 
Captain Dutton dryly. 

“Oh, yes, I think I can. I can generally find 
the way to any place I want to go to.” 

“I should think you could,” said he dryly. 

Claudia laughed softly. This sort of innuendo 
was a pleasant change from the straightforward, 
reverential adoration of Harry. They sauntered 
along the lane, and both found a twenty min- 
utes’ interview, which was all Claudia dared 


98 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


give, too brief. They parted with a kiss, a long 
kiss, and a whispered appointment; and then 
Claudia hurried back toward the main road 
again. 

But she had not taken many steps before she 
ran against a figure with arms outstretched. 

Claudia uttered a stifled scream. It was N ance. 

“Claudia! Oh, how could you?” 

“Could I what?” asked Claudia as sweetly 
as ever, though she was panting and her voice 
shook a little. 

“Meet Captain Dutton? Kiss him?” 

There was a moment’s pause. Then Claudia 
answerd in a sullen voice, full of subdued anger, 
a voice Nance would not have thought within 
the range of the sweet-faced woman : 

“You have been following me, then; spying 
upon me?” 

“Oh, Claudia, how can you say such a thing? 
Why should I spy upon you? I never thought 
it possible you could do anything really wrong!” 

She was much more disturbed, poor Nance, 
than Claudia, who, at this speech, turned upon 
her with most real and sincere indignation. 

“Wrong! How dare you say such a thing! 
I have done nothing wrong. What’s a kiss?” 

The frank cynicism of this retort struck Nance 
dumb. She, modest, loyal, whole-hearted wo- 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


99 


m$n that she was, could not at first take in all 
that the words revealed. But she understood 

4 

enough to know, in a dimly terrible way, what 
manner of woman it was whom Harry Darch 
had married. 


CHAPTER ELEVEN 

CLAUDIA’S PENITENCE 

Neither woman spoke for a few moments. 
Claudia perceived dimly that Nance was hor- 
ribly shocked, and she felt aggrieved at the cir- 
cumstance. The doctor’s wife did sincerely feel 
that a great fuss was being made about nothing; 
but she saw also that Nance was one of those 
priggish, strait-laced country people who make 
mountains out of molehills such as these, and 
upon whom argument on the subject would 
be thrown away. And then Claudia could not 
argue; she was aware of the fact herself. 

After enduring for a few moments the awk- 
ward silence which bad succeeded her own words, 
Claudia took a brisk step forward, and wishing 
Nance a rather cold “good-night,” made for the 
high road. 

But she had not gone many steps before' the 
conviction was borne in upon her that she had 


100 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


better settle matters with that odious frump and 
prig, who could make so much mischief if she 
chose to be nasty. Nance had not even wished 
her good-night back. 

So Claudia waited, in rather a stiff-necked at- 
titude, knowing that Nance must pass her. And 
when Miss Incledon came up, and was going on 
without a word, young Mrs. Darch called to her 
petulantly : 

“Nance! Miss Incledon! I want to speak to 
you.” 

Nance seemed to hesitate; then she slackened 
her paoe, and allowed Claudia to come up with 
her. 

“I suppose you’re going to tell Harry?” 

Claudia’s tone was half pettish, half haughty, 
wholly feminine, and rather touching. Or at 
least Nance, personally liking her, could not 
help thinking so. 

“I— I don’t know what to think.” 

Nance’s tone was entirely miserable and 
shamefaced. “It is a dreadful thing. I 
thought you were so sweet, and so fond of 
him. Oh, it is dreadful! I don’t want to be 
hard upon you, Claudia, but you don’t know 
how dreadful it is.” 

Claudia made no answer for a few seconds, 
and then she began to whimper. 


DR. D ARCHES WIFE 


101 


“I wish he’d, never married me at all! I’m 
sure I don’t know why he did! I shall run 
away, I think!” 

“Oh, Claudia, don’t talk like that! You don’t 
mean it, you can’t ! He loves you so ; he can 
think of nothing but you. I don’t think you 
can understand, dear, how much he loves you. 
If you were to go away, you would break his 
heart.” 

“But wouldn’t it be better than staying, if we 
don’t suit each other?” said Claudia with exas- 
peration. “And we certainly shan’t get on well 
if I’m to be followed ab<3ut wherever I go, and — ” 

“But I only followed you, as you call it, be- 
cause I thought you had taken the wrong road 
by mistake!” pleaded Nance. “I got out very 
quickly, and ran down the main road, thinking 
I should overtake you, when one of the choir 
girls ran after me, and told me that, if I was 
looking for you, I must go back, as you had 
gone up the lane to Dyson’s farm.” 

She spoke so humbly, so persuasively, that 
Claudia, who was not vindictive, could not be 
angry any longer. Instead, rather to Nance’s 
horror, she laughed. 

“Oh, well,” she said, “if it was only an acci- 
dent, I must forgive you, I suppose. But don’t 
do it again.” 


102 DR. DARCH’S WIFE 

“But Claudia, you don’t mean to go on meet- 
ing him, do you? Surely you know how wrong 
it is, how shocking! Why, do you know what 
Harry would do if he found it out?” 

There was fear in Claudia’s tone as she an- 
swered : 

“If he does find it out, I shall run away. So 
I warn you what you will do for him if you tell 
him. But I don’t mean to meet Captain Dutton 
again ; certainly I don’t, since you think so much 
of it. You are very strict, you know, Nance, 
much stricter than people are generally nowa- 
days. I suppose it’s through living in the coun- 
try.” 

“Oh, nonsense, Claudia. It’s no more right 
in town than in the country.” 

“Yes, it is,” said Claudia placidly, as if lay- 
ing down the law on a matter of fact. “A little 
harmless flirtation is taken as a matter of course 
in town.” 

✓ 

“How can a flirtation be harmless when you’re 
married?” asked Nance indignantly. “A flirta- 
tion of that sort, I mean, with such a man as 
Captain Dutton too? I’m not at all the dragon 
you seem to think; but, oh, Claudia, you go 
too far, very much too far, indeed. I think 
you must know it; I don’t think you can be as 
silly as you are pretending to be!” 


DR. D ARCH’S WIFE 


103 


Claudia was between laughter and tears. 

“Well, won’t you leave off scolding me if I 
promise never to speak to Regie Dutton again? 
I don’t care a straw about him, and I only met 
him just for fun, to pay Harry out for his ridicu- 
lous behavior at the ball the other night. And 
as for letting him kiss me, why, it was only be-, 
cause he had a bit of mistletoe in his buttonhole, 
and he surprised me before I knew what he was 
going to do!” 

As Claudia seemed to think this was a fully 
sufficient explanation and excuse, Nance said no 
more. And. when, a few minutes later, they 
reached the turning to The Firs, they parted with- 
out any further reference to the delicate subject. 

Claudia reached her home, and ran straight 
into the drawing-room, the prettiest picture in 
the world in her furs, with a flush brought into 
her cheeks by the cold and by the stimulus of 
the evening’s excitement. 

But she had hardly opened the door of the 
room, with a bright “Well, Harry, here I am 
back again!” when she perceived that some- 
thing had happened. 

Dr. Darch was not seated comfortably in his 
chair, as she had expected, but was walking up 
and down the room, with his hands behind his 
back, and with a black frown on his face. 


101 - 


DR. darch’s wife 


“Why, Harry, what’s the matter?” she asked, 
with a sudden access of timidity, and a great fear 
at her coward heart. 

He had stopped short, and was looking at her 
with an expression which caused her own eyes 
to wander, with a shifty look of guilt, from his 
face to the curtains, and from the curtains to the 
floor. “What made you so long coming back?” 
was his first question, short, dry, hard. 

“I — I met Nance. We — stood — talking,” fal- 
tered Claudia. 

She did not look up, to see that the frown on 
her husband’s face grew blacker; but she noticed 
a change for the worse in his tone as he asked : 

“What were you doing in Dyson’s Lane?” 

“Where is Dyson’s Lane? I don’t even know 
it!” said she flippantly. 

But the tone did not deceive her husband. It 
only exasperated him further. 

“You met some one in Dyson’s Lane this 
evening — ” said he doggedly. “Captain Dut- 
ton!” he added sharply. 

The blood rushed to Claudia’s face, and she 
flinched under his words. In an instant his 
hand was upon her wrist. 

“Don’t! You hurt me!” cried she plaintive- 
ly, cowering, and speaking in a voice muffled 
with terror. 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


105 


He knew that this was not true. * But he let 
her go. 

“You met him by appointment. That was 
why you were so anxious to go to church. That 
was why you didn’t want me to go with you!” 
said Dr. Darch, scarcely master of his own voice. 

“No, I didn’t,” faltered Claudia. 

But as her husband received the lie with a 
short scornful interjection, she suddenly looked 
up, and said defiantly : 

“And if I did, why shouldn’t I?” 

Dr. Darch was - taken aback by the frank 
effrontery of this question, which was empha- 
sized by the very look of the pretty creature as 
she put it, a look, not bold or daring, but des- 
perate, despairing, with the defiance of con- 
scious weakness. There were tears in her blue 
eyes ; her lips were parted ; she leaned with her 
hand on the back of a chair as she spoke. 

“Why shouldn’t you make appointments of 
that sort!” stammered Harry. 

“It was not an appointment. It was an acci- 
dent, my meeting him. He met me — coming 
out of church — and — and we turned up the lane 
because — because we knew what a fuss would 
be made, in this hateful, spiteful place, if — if we 
spoke to each other where there was any one 
about. There was no harm in it, not the least. 


106 


DR. D ARCH'S WIFE 


There! If you don’t believe me, I can’t help 
it!” * 

And Claudia, who was very pale, and who 
was trembling so much that she seemed 
scarcely able to stand, tottered to a sofa, and 
sank down. 

Her husband watched her, as she sat, with 
her eyes steadfastly looking on the floor, fum- 
bling at the fastenings of her sealskin cloak. 
There were only two or three hooks to undo, but 
her shaking fingers were incapable even of this 
small achievement. As he looked, his heart was 
torn within him. Deep, strong love such as his 
is never very blind, and he was not unconscious 
of the fact that his wife’s nature was shallower 
than his own. But he loved her just as he knew 
her, bright, affectionate, contented with the sur- 
face of things; and he never troubled himself, 
honest fellow that he was, about the fact that a 
surface-love would have been enough for her. 

What if she neither knew nor cared how strong 
his own devotion to her was? For her to recei ve 
it, to respond in the pretty child-like fashion 
natural to her, to smile into his face, to be made 
happy by his care, was enough for him. 

Now to see her unhappy, frightened, with all 
the brightness, the pretty gayety crushed out of 
her, was an ordeal which set him quivering in 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


107 


every nerve. Could he, should he believe her? 
He wanted to, he longed to. But could he? 

As he looked, as he wavered, she suddenly 
gave up the attempt to unfasten her cloak, and 
throwing herself face downward among the cush- 
ions of the sofa, sobbed as if her heart would 
break. 

Away went his last rag of a scruple, if not of 
a doubt ; everything was swallowed up in a flood 
of passionate tenderness to the wife with whom, 
till that evening, he had never had a serious 
quarrel. In a moment he was beside her on the 
sofa, raising her head with strong, tender arms, 
pressing it against his breast, holding her tight 
in the clasp of a love she could neither doubt nor 
fear. 

He did not speak to her, except to call her, al- 
most inarticulately, by name; but he held her 
close, until her sobs gradually died away. 

Then, quite suddenly, while he was slowly 
making up his mind what words he should use 
in the solemn address he meant to make to her, 
she drew herself just far enough away from him 
to look up into his face, and broke out into a 
happy laugh of perfect contentment. 

“ There, I thought you couldn’t be going to be 
quite a brute to me, all at once. You, too, who 
have always been so kind! Kiss me, Harry!” 


108 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


And when he had kissed her, nothing would 
satisfy her but to spring upon his knee, put her 
arms round his neck, and insist that he should 
apologize for his conduct. 

Dr. Darch stared, disconcerted. 

“Me! I! Apologize! What for?” 

“Why, for daring to think wicked things of 
me, just because Harriet heard somebody else 
say that I had gone down Dyson’s Lane!” 

She had discovered that this w~as all the founda- 
tion he had had to go upon for his suspicions, 
and she was mad to think that he had succeeded 
in getting a little more of the truth out of her- 
self. 

“But, my darling, I was in the right. You 
ought not to have gone one step out of your way 
for this fellow. It cuts me to the heart to think 
you cannot see that for yourself. Can’t you un- 
derstand how mad, foolish it was of you to give 
a fellow like that the power of saying a sneering 
thing about you? Can’t you see what sort of a 
man he is? Ready to flirt with any woman, to 
compromise any woman who will give him the 
chance? Can’t you see that, Claudia?” said Dr. 
Darch impatiently. 

She was looking at the fire, her pretty eye- 
brows raised, as if trying hard to understand the 
difficult proposition put to her. 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


109 


“Why,” said she at last, “you introduce me 
to very queer people then, don’t you? This— bis 
father’s and mother’s house, was the very one 
you were so anxious to drag me to! How could 
I suppose the people in it were persons whom I 
should have to be on my guard against all the 
time?” 

“Come, Claudia, that’s nonsense. You have 
to be on your guard, as you call it, always against 
doing idiotic things. I can’t keep you shut up 
in a glass case—” 

“Well, it seems to me you’d like to!” 

“And I can’t even choose the people I shall 
introduce you to!” 

“A nice lively set they’d be if you could!” 

“But I can expect you to use a little discrimi- 
nation yourself, and I can ask you not to make 
intimate friends of people whom I can only barely 
tolerate as acquaintances.” 

“What’s the harm in Captain Dutton?” 

“I’ve told you,” said Dr. Darch impatiently. 
“And you can surely see for yourself. He’s not 
at all popular with the women of his own rank 
about here, I assure you.” 

“Because he doesn’t pay them enough atten- 
tion, I suppose!” said Claudia rather haughtily. 

“He is generally credited with preferring 
women of a lower class altogether,” said Dr 


110 


DR. D ARCH’S WIFE 


Darch dryly. “With barmaids, I believe, he is 
a great favorite.” 

“Well, of course that is meant to make me 
feel small,” observed Claudia slowly, “and 
as much as to say that I’m like a barmaid.” 

“No, no, I don’t say that.” 

“Yes, you did. But it doesn’t matter. Bar- 
maid or no barmaid, I understand that I’m not 
to speak to Captain Dutton any more. And if 
he speaks to me, or wants to, I’m to turn my 
back upon him and walk away.” 

“Now, Claudia, that’s nonsense — ” began Dr. 
Darch 

But he was stopped by a ringing peal of laugh- 
ter from his wife, who seized his face between 
both her hands and looked full at him with 
saucy, alluring eyes. 

“Oh, dear, I know it’s nonsense. But when 
I’m obliged to listen to so much nonsense from 
you, it’s only fair you should hear a little from 
me in return ! Now let’s be serious. You don’t 
want me to flirt, I understand!” 

“N — no, I don’t,” stammered the beauty’s 
husband, whose breath was almost taken away 
by this remark. “I certainly don’t. I think a 
woman ought to give up flirting when she mar- 
ries, most certainly.” 

“But supposing she can’t!” protested Claudia, 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


111 


with a comical- air of mingled audacity and in- 
nocence. “Supposing flirtation — I suppose you 
call it flirtation — I don’t; /call it making my- 
self as agreeable as I can to my husband’s pa- 
tients — But supposing flirtation is natural and 
necessary to her; supposing she has always 
taken pleasure in harmless amusement of that 
kind, and that she does not see why she should 
give it up, what then?” 

“But, Claudia, you didn’t do it before you 
were married. You never flirted with me!” 

“Oh, yes, I did. Just in the quiet way you 
liked best!” 

* Dr. Darch felt sick. There was something so 
frankly cynical about this easy confession that 
she had adapted herself to him just as she could 
adapt herself to any man, that for a few mo- 
ments, during which she made curls of his front 
hair with great gravity, he could not speak. 

When he spoke, it was in a constrained voice : 

“Claudia, if I frightened you when you came 
in, you’ve paid me back in my own coin. You 
frighten me now!” 

“Do I? Why? There’s no need for you to 
be frightened, dear. If you don’t want me to 
flirt, I won’t. I really, truly, won’t. But you 
must keep a tight hand on me, you know, and 
keep me to my promise. Oh, Harry” — and she 


112 DR. D ARCH’S WIFE 

suddenly flung her arms round his neck with an 
outburst of real feeling — “I do mean to try to 
be good, and to do just what you wish; but you 
mustn’t frighten me, as you’ve done all the time 
about this Captain Dutton. It was all your 
fault, and out of bravado, because you fright- 
ened me! Don’t do it again, oh, don’t do it 
again!” 

And, conscious as he was that this appeal 
would have had more justification if addressed 
by him to her than it had when addressed by 
her to him, Dr. Darch assured her of his repent- 
ance, his remorse. 


CHAPTER TWELVE 

AN AMENDMENT 

On the following day Claudia called upon old 
Mrs. Darch, and found Nance just a little cold 
and distant. Claudia, on the other hand, had 
never been in better spirits. She made Nance 
see her to the gate, as she went out; and, with 
a burst of laughter, told her that she had “made 
it all right with Harry.” 

“About las* night — Captain Dutton — you 
know!” she added with a confidential nod. 


DR. D ARCH’S WIFE 


113 


Nance looked at her in doubt and amazement. 
From what she had seen of young Mrs. Darch, 
she thought honest, gratuitous confession the 
very last thing to be expected of her. 

“You told him?” stammered Nance. “And 
what — what did he say?” 

“Oh, he was very angry. He scolded me, he 
frightened me nearly into a fit. But he forgave 
me at last, upon condition that I am never to do 
it again!” 

“I should think not!” retorted Nance. 

She could not quite understand how Harry 
could have forgiven his wife so soon, fond as he 
was of her. And it did occur to her to wonder 
whether Claudia’s confession had been complete. 
However, she did not like to ask. She delivered 
this little homily instead : 

“It’s very good of him; I hope you feel how 
good it is; and that you won’t ever do anything 
so wrong again!” 

“Oh, no, I shan’t. He’s not going to let me. 
I told him he would' have to take care that I 
didn’t,” replied Claudia gayly. 

“But you ought to be able to take care of 
yourself,” said Nance gravely. “A married 
woman is not an irresponsible creature; she has 
the honor and the happiness of two people to 
guard.” 


114 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


Young Mrs. Darch, who was smoothing her 
muff, made a comical face. 

“Why, you’re worse than Harry!” she ex- 
claimed. Then she added affectionately, a mo- 
ment later: “But I don’t mind. You may say 
just what you like to me, for I know you are 
thinking of nothing but his good, and mine. 
But the more I look at you, and the more I 
think of him, the more I wonder why he didn’t 
do the best thing he ever had a chance of doing 
for himself in his life, by- marrying you!” 

Poor Nance blushed furiously, and felt her 
heart beat very fast at this flippant but shrewd 
remark. “Perhaps he wouldn’t have had a 
chance with me!” she said, drawing herself up. 

“Oh, yes, he would though. I know that! 
I’m not ver}^ clever, but I’m not quite so silly as 
some people think. The more I see of both of 
you the more plainly I see that you were made 
for each other.” 

Nance shook her head gravely. “No, Claudia, 
you need not be jealous of 'me,” she said quietly. 

But Claudia responded at once, with vivacity: 
“Oh, no, I should never be jealous. I often want 
him to come round here in the evenings, be- 
cause I think your lively talk would cheer him 
up. You know I never have anything to say — 
especially to him.” 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 115 

Nance looked rather shocked at more than one 
point of this speech. Claudia laughed gently. 

“Oh, I suppose you think I want to send him 
round here' to get rid of him? But I didn’t mean 
that. No, no. I’m really going to be perfectly 
good and devoted. But of course husband and 
wife can’t go on forever finding fresh things to 
say to each other, can they? So it seems selfish 
tfi keep him indoors when I can’t amuse him!” 

“I don’t think he ever complains that you 
bore him!” said Nance. 

“Oh, of course not. He is just as good and 
as kind as he can be always. And I’m going 
to try to deserve it, really!” 

She went off with a cheerful nod, leaving 
Nance staring at her in desperate perplexitj^. 
She could not but see that there was something 
very like a rift within the lute already; and 
Claudia’s rather flippant account of her confes- 
sion and of her husband’s forgiveness was cal- 
culated to increase anxiety on their account, as 
much as to allay it. Nance had often heard 
that husband and wife generally took a year to 
settle down into each other’s ways, and she tried 
to tell herself that she was unduly nervous about 
this particular case ; but she could not quite con- 
quer her feeling of uneasiness. 

There was no doubt, however, as the weeks 


11G DR. DARCH’S WIFE 

went by, that Claudia’s repentance, flippant and 
slight as it had perhaps seemed, was having 
fruit in genuine amendment. 

She never went out by herself, except to see 
Nance and her mother. She gave an account of 
all her actions to her husband every evening, 
with gleeful insistance, which rather hurt, while, 
on the other hand, it rather charmed him. And 
when she met Captain Dutton, who took every 
occasion to put himself in her way, she snubbed 
him with some tact, and rather ostentatiously. 

Regie, surprised and much annoyed, took her 
rebuffs quietly, but with an expression of malice 
on his mean little face which did not escape her 
notice. 

Claudia was one of those philosophical persons 
who, when one source of enjoyment or amuse- 
ment is cut off, speedily find for themselves others 
to take its place. 

She did a little district-visiting, and estab- 
lished herself at once as the most popular “visi- 
tor” in the parish. For she was just as sweet 
to the cottagers as to her own friends, and no 
more patronizing in her manner to the poor than 
to the rich. She would gladly have taken more 
of this work, but that her fellow- workers were 
too jealous of her sudden popularity to allow it. 

Then, besides giving full attention to her social 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


117 


duties, which the success she had made had ren- 
dered numerous and exacting, Claudia, to her 
husband’s satisfaction, became more interested 
in religious matters than she had previously 
been, and attended even the week-day services 
with great regularity. On these occasions, how- 
ever, she never went to the church alone, but 
insisted on making old Mrs. Darch her compan- 
ion. As for the Sunday services, Claudia found 
the regulation once a day totally inadequate 
to her spiritual needs. So she went in the even- 
ing also, dragging her husband with her, with 
great propriety. 

Dr. Darch, while not desperately strict in re- 
ligious observances on his own account, held the 
usual opinions on the necessity of such things for 
women. And of course he indulged her in this 
as in most things, and accompanied her with 
perfect meekness. 

There were two curates at the church, one of 
the regulation pattern, mild, deliberate, spirit- 
less and insignificant, and the other a tall and 
remarkably good - looking young fellow, with 
simple, straightforward manners, and the voice 
and bearing of a man. 

It was this latter who held the evening ser- 
vices, and by the time Claudia, who was very 
devout, had put away her books and fastened 


118 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


her cloak, it usually happened that the curate 
was coming down the aisle from the vestry. 

And it was on one of those occasions that Dr. 
Darch, going down the aisle in front of his wife, 
turned to whisper something in her ear, and sur- 
prised her in the act of looking up into the hand- 
some curate’s face with a certain alluring look 
and smile which he had always believed to be 
reserved by her for himself alone. 


CHAPTER THIRTEEN 

CLAUDIA HEARS OF A STORY 

The heart of Dr. Darch sank within him. It 
was less anger that he felt than a dumb fear of 
this woman, who was his sweet, tender wife* at 
one moment, and. a brazen, wanton coquette the 
next, with alluring looks and smiles for any man 
who took her fancy. 

He seized her arm almost roughly, and led her 
quickly out of the church. In the porch old Mrs. 
Darch met them, and was persuaded by Claudia 
to accompany them back to The Firs for supper. 
To the suggestion that she could not leave Nance 
by herself Claudia replied by offering herself to 
fetch Nance; and the next moment she had left 
her husband and his stepmother together, while 
she ran off to carry out her plan. 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


119 


By this means the young wife artfully con- 
trived to stave off the wrath she saw in her hus- 
band’s eyes ; and on her return home with Nance 
she made herself so sweet, was so gentle, so ami- 
able and affectionate to them all, that by the time 
husband and wife were left alone together, he 
with old Mrs. Darch’s praises of Claudia’s lova- 
ble disposition ringing in his ears, the first strong 
impression of her perfidy had passed away, and 
nothing but a vague uneasiness remained. 

Still, Dr. Darch felt bound to remonstrate with 
her on her conduct. It was, however, in a very 
much gentler tone than he would have used a 
couple of hours before that he began : 

“My dear Claudia, I am afraid you’ll think 
me a bit of a bear, but I really must speak to 
you about the way in which you were looking 
at Mr. Harrison in the church to-night. It’s an 
awkward thing to have to say to you — ” 

“Then why say it, dear?” interrupted Claudia, 
as she threw her arms round his neck, and be- 
gan to play with his mustache. “I wouldn’t 
take the trouble to say awkward things, if I 
were you. Especially as they are just as awk- 
ward for me to listen to, as for you to say.” 
And she began to laugh. “It is silly of you, 
Harry, to complain of my looking at anybody' 
but you.- A curate too! Now, isn’t it?” 


120 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


“Come, Claudia, you know what I mean, 
though you choose to pretend you don’t. It 
isn’t the fact of looking at a person, it’s the 
manner of doing it that matters.” 

4 4 W ell, how shall I look at Mr. Harrison? Like 
this?” And she threw back her head and pinched 
up her lips, in a supercilious manner. 

“No, no, don’t be silly.” 

“Or like this?” And she cast at her husband 
a look of mock reverence which made him laugh 
in spite of himself. 

“I begin to think you’d better not look at him 
at all. And if you’ve any church matters to dis- 
cuss, why, discuss them with Mr. Ross.” 

This was the other curate. Claudia made a 
wry face. “Doesn’t it matter how I look at him?’ 3 ' 

“Really, Claudia — ” 

She ended the discussion with a burst of merry 
laughter, which her husband tried in vain to in- 
terrupt by further admonitions. 

The incident seemed to be at an end. But Dr. 
Darch noticed in his wife’s blue eyes, as she sub- 
sided into gravity again, a look he had never 
seen in them before. A forecast, it was, of that 
terrible stare, furtive, silent, enigmatic, which, 
when it appears in a woman’s eyes as she looks 
at her husband, means that the real union be- 
tween them is over. And when that look ap- 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


121 


pears in her eyes, and he asks, “What are you 
thinking about ? 5 ’ the answer she always gives 
is: “Nothing.” 

Something of this Dr. Darcli dimly felt, per- 
haps ; but not often, and not for long. Claudia 
was too amiable, too contented with her position 
in spite of its drawbacks, not to humor her hus- 
band’s whims, or at least to appear to do so. 

When he demurred a little to her district- visit- 
ing, perhaps as an occupation too conducive to 
intimacy with the younger clergy, she gave way 
— or seemed to do so. In everything she tried 
to please her husband, with touching dutiful- 
ness, until one unlucky evening when they had 
again to dine at Dutton Hall. 

On that occasion Claudia was taken in to din- 
ner by Captain Dutton; and although this ar- 
rangement was undesired by her, and in spite 
of the fact that Regie gave her his arm with a 
studied air of impertinent indifference, Dr. Darch 
shot at his wife an uneasy glance which she no- 
ticed and secretly resented. 

Once seated at the table, however, she had no 
need to trouble her head about her husband’s 
looks, as the party was a large one, he was a 
long way off, and the flowers and fruit, the ferns 
and the candelabra, effectually screened both 
her and her companion from his jealous glances. 


122 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


Even if Dr. Darch had been nearer, however, 
he would have had no excuse for uneasiness. If 
Captain Dutton pretended to feel indifferent, 
Claudia really was so. Constancy was not a 
strong point with her; and although she had 
heartily enjoyed the flirtation with Regie, which 
had been so quickly cut short, he had been com- 
pletely dispossessed from his former place in her 
imagination by the handsome curate. 

Captain Dutton, however, really felt for her 
an infatuation which was all the stronger for 
her recent reserve, which he would not believe 
to be the result of indifference. 

“I haven’t seen much of you lately, Mrs. 
Darch,” said he, as soon as the general thaw 
had set in, and talk had become universal. His 
voice shook a little as he spoke, and he crum- 
bled his bread with a schoolboy’s nervousness. 

“No,” said Claudia, without looking at him, 
but with discouraging coolness, “I suppose you 
haven’t. I’ve been up to my eyes in soup and 
blankets, you know, ever since Christmas.” 

“Very good of you, and charitable, and all 
that. But doesn’t one’s duty to one’s neighbor 
take in other neighbors, besides the soup and 
blanket-consuming ones?” 

“What others?” asked Claudia, with appar- 
ently unsuspicious blankness of look. 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


123 


“Why, those who suffer more from the long- 
ing for a kind look, or a smile from you, than 
ever the poor do with the longing for a blanket !” 

Claudia laughed, affecting to think this a joke. 

“Oh, yes,” said she, “I haven’t forgotten 
those. I’ve given away smiles and kind looks 
too, I assure you.” 

“Then why have I been left out?” He tried to 
speak in her own tone; but, being in earnest while 
she was in play, he did not succeed very well. 

“Oh,” said she, laughing again, “you have 
had your share. Now it is somebody else’s turn. ’ ’ 

Captain Dutton was taken aback by this speci- 
men of charming effrontery, which she made all 
the more effective for the gentle, lisping tone of 
apparent ingenuousness- with which she spoke. 

“Do you mean that?” asked he, after a pause. 

“Of course I do.” 

Claudia bent forward to look at an azalea 
which spread its well-trained branches over a 
bank of ferns in front of her, and appeared to 
be absorbed in admiration of its blossoms. 

“What lovely flowers! We haven’t any like 
these azaleas at The Firs,” said she. 

“Are you so fond of azaleas? I’ll bring you 
some, if you like. Only tell me a day when 
you will be in, and I’ll turn up at The Firs with 
a cartload of them.” 


124 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


Claudia laughed heartily. “That would be 
funny ! A cartload of azaleas with you on the top ! 
People would stare a little, wouldn’t they?” 

“I shouldn’t care how much they stared, if I 
were giving you pleasure!” 

“Oh, but it wouldn’t give me any pleasure. 
I shouldn’t know what to do with therp. I like 
the pleasure of looking at flowers, that’s all. I 
don’t understand the care of them.” 

“Well, may i call upon you without the 
flowers?” 

“No, I’m never in.” 

“Where can I meet you then? You never 
kept your last appointment.” 

“And I don’t mean to make or to keep any 
more,” said Claudia coolly. “My husband 
found out that I met you, and he was very 
angry.” Captain Dutton looked incredulous. 

“Did his anger, or anything else in the world, 
ever prevent your doing anything you really 
wanted to do?” he asked, with a voice which he 
could not keep quite steady. 

Claudia smiled a little. She evidently looked 
upon the question as a compliment. “Well, 
no,” she admitted softly. “I suppose not.” 

There was a pause. Captain Dutton, who 
was more in love with her, in his own unflat- 
tering fashion, than he had been in his life with 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


125 


any other woman, was confounded by the change 
in her. He had kept himself sufficiently well- 
informed as to her movements to hazard a safe 
guess as to the cause. 

“I suppose,” he said, after a silence, during 
which Mrs. Darch appeared perfectly uncon- 
cerned, “it is religious enthusiasm which has 
brought about this reformation in you, Mrs. 
Darch?” 

Claudia looked down demurely upon the table- 
cloth. “Well, whatever has brought it about, it 
is a change for the better, isn’t it?” said she in- 
genuously. 

Captain Dutton was not chivalrous at any 
time, and now his whole soul was devoured by 
malignity inspired by baffled passion. He 
laughed a disagreeable little laugh, and pres- 
ently said, under his breath : 

“Dr. Darch approves of your religidus enthu- 
siasm, I suppose? So devoted a wife as you are 
would hardly indulge it otherwise?” 

“Oh, I think so,” replied Claudia, who under- 
stood him perfectly, but who, not being well 
skilled in conversational fence, felt that the 
least said was soonest mended. 

There was another pause, and when Captain 
Dutton spoke again he appeared to have entirely 
recovered his self-possession. 


126 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


“By tlie bye, Mrs. Darch,” said he, with the 
air of one who escapes with relief from an un- 
pleasant subject to another more agreeable, “I 
haven’t told you that I have been moving about 
with great rapidity since I saw you last.” 

“Oh, yes, I heard you’d been up in town,” 
said Claudia, with the same provoking air of 
indifference. 

“Oh, I don’t mean only in town. You don’t 
call that ‘moving about,’ do you? No. I’ve 
been to Southampton, to see a friend off to 
Africa. And I’ve been down in Oxfordshire — ” 

He paused for a second, and glanced at her. 
Claudia, taken by surprise, grew red and then 
white. He went on, keeping his eyes upon her : 

“I suppose you don’t happen to know a little 
country place, small town— big village — I don’t 
know what you’d call it — named Burfield?” 

Claudia did not answer at once. But it was 
easy enough for him to see, by' the horror which 
appeared in her eyes, by the forced stolidity with 
which she listened, that he had struck home. 

“Burfield!” she said at last, without looking 
at him. “No, I don’t think I ever heard of it.” 

“I thought not. It’s a pretty little place. 
And while I was there I heard a story — ” 

“What were you doing there? Were you 
staying with friends, or what?” interrupted 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


127 


Claudia, forcing herself to speak quite quietly, 
but betraying herself a little to his watchful eyes 
by the sickly pallor of her face. 

“Well, I had heard a story, about a woman. 
Such an interesting one that I thought I should 
like to know a little more about it. So I went 
down there to find it out. May I tell it you? I 
believe you would think it interesting, really!” 

“Oh, no, don’t. Stories bore me. I can never 
listen to them.” 

“You could to this one, I’m sure. Do. I’d 
. much rather tell it to you — than to any one else!” 

This was a challenge. Claudia, pale as ever, 
but with a sudden flash of a spirit which was 
more like that of an enraged tigress than of the 
sweet creature she was popularly supposed to 
be, looked him straight in the eyes and laughed 
rather discordantly : “Tell your story to some 
one else,” said she, “if you must tell it at all. 
To my husband, for instance!” 

Captain Dutton looked at her, divided between 
admiration and the meanest sort of spite : 

“Do you dare me to?” asked he, in a low 
voice; adding, in one still lower: “When I’m to 
be bought off so easily?” 

But to his surprise, and infinite mortification, 
she was not willing to pay the most modest price. 
She shrugged her shoulders, and answered in a 


128 


DR. DARCH ’S WIFE 


load voice, just as she rose with the other ladies, 
and moved slowly toward the door: 

“I dare you to, certainly, Captain Dutton!” 

Nobody would have guessed, from her tone or 
manner, that the challenge was on a subject of 
any importance to her. Dr. Darch, who heard 
her final words, asked her, in the drawing-room, 
to what they referred. But she affected to have 
forgotten. 

“It must have been something I said to him 
in fun, Harry,” she said. “He was boring me 
to death!” 

To her husband’s great satisfaction, Claudia 
snubbed Captain Dutton persistently for the re- 
mainder of the evening, with an unconcerned 
manner which exasperated Regie beyond endur- 
ance. He tried first apology, then something 
very like a threat. But neither method was of 
any avail against Claudia’s airy affectation of 
indifference. 

Their last encounter was in the hall, as Dr. 
Darch and his wife were leaving. Regie came 
up to Claudia, while Sir George was talking to 
the young doctor. 

“Come,” whispered Captain Dutton persua- 
sively, with all the earnestness he was capable 
of, “let us be friends. You can trust me.” 

But Claudia turned upon him quite fiercely. 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 129 

“Be friends with a man who has threatened 
me! No, indeed! And as for trusting you, 
why, I’d sooner tell Harry everything!” 

Captain Dutton could not repress a sneer at 
this. “You could hardly tell him — everything, 
you know!” said he. 

Claudia gave him one frightened look, but she 
said nothing. 

She turned away and went forward to the 
door with her husband, and to Captain Dutton’s 
“Good-night, Mrs. Darch,” she made no answer. 


CHAPTER FOURTEEN 

CLAUDIA GOES TO TOWN 

Dr. Darch could not fail to notice, as he 
drove home with his wife, that a change had 
taken place in her manner, and this in spite of 
the fact that she had the excuse of being tired, 
so that she was able to lean back in her comer 
and pretend to be half asleep. 

Circumstances had made it impossible for him 
to feel in the wife he loved as passionately as 
ever the implicit confidence he once had felt. 
But the discovery had only changed the char- 
acter of his affection a little, without in any 
way impairing the strength of it. If anything, 
while respecting her less, he loved her more. 


130 


DR. D ARCH’S WIFE 


There was a stronger element of the protecting 
tenderness of the guardian, of the indulgence 
of a superior, in his love than there had been in 
the earliest days of his marriage, before he hajJ 
learned the depths of her coquetry, her little 
feminine craftinesses, her powers of reticence. 

“Claudia,” said he gently, when he had fur- 
tively watched her for some minutes by the dim 
yellow light of the carriage-lamps, “what’s the 
matter?” 

She started slightly, but smiled and gave the 
usual answer: “Nothing.” 

“Are you sure, dear?” 

She tucked her hand under his arm caressing- 
ly: “Quite, quite sure.” 

She soothed his uneasiness for the moment, 
but it returned the next day in a more intense 
form. The change in her, which had been slight 
on the return from the Hall, had grown greater 
with daylight. 

Her spirits began to decline; she became taci- 
turn, restless. At the end of a week not her 
husband only, but old Mrs. Darcli and Nance 
noticed that something was wrong. 

Claudia, however, protested stoutly that they 
were all wrong, and, stimulated by the watch 
kept on her, made an effort to rally her spirits. 

In this she appeared to succeed, and Dr. Darch 


DR. D ARCHES WIFE 


131 


f was beginning to flatter himself that everything 
was all right again, when she announced, one 
morning at breakfast, her intention of running 
up to town, to do some shopping. She wanted 
some new clothes now that the bright days were 
coming, she said. 

“What? More new clothes? With all those 
things you brought from Paris as fresh as ever!” 
cried her husband good-humoredly. 

Claudia blushed and looked down rather 
shamefacedly. He thought she felt guilty on 
the score of her extravagance, and he rose 
from his seat to reassure her on that point. 

“Don’t look so miserable, child. I’m not 
going to scold you,” said he tenderly. “Let 
me see what I can spare for you. Will ten 
t' pounds do?” 

“Oh, yes.” 

She was delightfully humble, and sweet, and 
grateful. He fancied, as she bade him good-by 
; before he went on his round of morning visits, 
that there was something quite pathetic in the 
l way she said “Good-by.” 

4 4 When do you think of going up?’ ’ it suddenly 

[ occurred to him to ask. 

“Oh, this morning, of course. There’s a train 
a little before twelve, which gets up soon after 
two — ” 


132 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


“Oh, but surely you’re not thinking of going 
to-day!” cried he in surprise. “By yourself! 
Wait and get Nance to go with you; go on Mon- 
day, or Tuesday, and start by the ten o’clock. 
It’s Saturday too. You would find all the shops 
shut!” 

Claudia looked troubled, but gently insisted. 

“They’ll be open, those that I’m going to. 
They don’t all shut up so soon,” persisted she. 
“I must go to-day. I want a bonnet for church 
to-morrow. I’ll take Nance with me if you like.” 

“Well, I suppose you must have your own 
way,” said Dr. Darch reluctantly. “But don’t 
miss the seven o’clock train.” 

“Of course I shan’t, dear.” 

He drove away, and she went indoors. 

When he came home to luncheon, Dr. Darch 
found Nance on the terrace. She was looking 
rather disturbed. “Hallo, Nance, couldn’t you 
go up with Claudia, then?” asked he. 

“She didn’t ask me. I’ve not seen her this 
morning,” answered Nance with a troubled look. 

“What a headstrong little person it is!” cried 
Dr. Darch, in a tone of vexation. “She was 
afraid, I suppose, that you would try to per- 
suade her to wait till Monday!” 

Nance said nothing to this, but she glanced at 
him with a peculiar expression. 


DR. D ARCH’S WIFE 


33 


“What’s the matter with you, Nance? Why 
do you iook at me like that?”, asked he with 
some irritation. At first she hesitated. 

“Oh, well, I’d better tell you,” muttered she 
at last. “I don’t think she means to come back 
to-night, Harry. She took up her big dressing- 
bag, and put a label on it to Charing Cross.” 

“Charing Cross! Why, what is she going to 
do at Charing Cross? It was to Victoria she 
was going!” After a pause, during which 
Nance said nothing, he added quickly: “Who 
told you?” 

“Harriet. She saw the label. ” 

Dr. Darch turned white. He saw that Nance 
had suspicions which she did not dare to name, 
but the sight only made him angry. 

‘ 4 The silly child has made some dreadful mud- 
dle of it, ’ ’ said he at last, in a voice which he 
vainly flattered himself was unaltered. “I had 
better go up and look for her, I think. Or, as 
you say, we shan’t get her back to-night.” 

Nance said little; but he had an uneasy feel- 
ing that she felt by no means reassured. 

There was a train for London in half an hour; 
and, as he could not eat, he started without his 
luncheon. On the journey to town he tormented 
himself with fears which he hardly dared to put 
into shape, but which grew uglier with every 


iu 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


mile. It was five o’clock before he reached Vic- 
toria, where he^ jumped into a hansom to drive 
to Charing Cross. 

He looked in the waiting-room ; he kept watch 
on every inlet. For two hours he waited, now 
torturing himself with fears that she might al- 
ready have passed through the station, now call- 
ing himself a fool for his doubts of her. 

The mail train for the Continent started at 
eight-fifteen; it was with this fact in his mind 
that he haunted the station, haggard, miserable, 
torn with fears. 

At twenty minutes to eight he saw his wife, 
with her bag in her hand, a look of placid hap- 
piness on her sweet face, come quickly into the 
station and look up at the clock. 

“Claudia!” She did not cry out when he 
touched her arm ; she only turned very white and 
began to shake from head to foot. “What are 
you doing here, dear? Our station is Victoria!” 

But he had. seen the tell-tale little booklet 
crushed up in her hand — the ticket for Paris. 
With supreme self-command he affected to take 
no notice of it, thankful only for oiie thing, that 
she was alone, that she had not given the search- 
ing, betraying look round of one who has an 
appointment to keep with some one else. 

He put her into a hansom, and jumped in 


DR. D ARCH’S WIFE 


135 


with her, telling the man. to drive to Victoria. 
Claudia was very silent, and evidently fright- 
ened; but she kept herself under strong self- 
control, and did not even throw at her husband 
the timid glances he was watching to intercept. 

They did not get a carriage to themselves, so 
they were not again alone until they got out of 
the train at Checksfield. She would not have a 
cab; she should like the walk, she said. 

So they walked on quickly in the darkness, 
she getting ahead of him when she could, and 
insisting upon his keeping to the high road. 

He was trying to choose the best and most 
touching way of opening that terrible discussion 
which must come, turning over in his mind the 
words he should use to her, the appeal he should 
make to her to be frank, to be true, as he was 
with her. And all the while she was sullen, si- 
lent, dejected ; a different Claudia from any he 
had known before. 

Just inside the gate of the grounds he stopped, 
and touching her arm to detain her, said gently : 
“Listen, Claudia, do you hear that twittering? 
We’ve frightened the birds.” 

He wanted to hear her voice again, to break 
the silence which was so horribly new with her. , 

Claudia turned round sullenly. It was too 
dark for him to see her face clearly. 


130 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


“D — the birds!” said she, in deep tones, be- 
tween her set teeth. 


CHAPTER FIFTEEN 

THE STRONG HAND 

Perhaps none of the many surprises his wife 
had given him in the course of their short mar- 
ried life had affected Dr. Darch so strongly as 
this last. Claudia did occasionally use slang 
of a kind not usually heard in quiet country 
houses, and use it, too, without any suggestion 
of inverted commas. But these small improprie- 
ties of speech had been forgiven by him. 

Her new offense, however, was too serious to 
be passed over. Dr. Darch kept strict watch 
over his own tongue, which, indeed, was not 
a member lively enough to lead him greatly 
astray; he was not the man to allow more free- 
dom in this respect to his wife. 

“Claudia,” said he severely, “I’m surprised 
at you. That is not a word for a lady’s mouth, 
not a word for my wife to use.” 

“Oh, stuff! Everybody says k when they’re 
angry,” retorted she, as she marched along up 
the avenue toward the house. 

He said nothing more, having regard to the 
fact that there was no time for an argument 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


137 


before the moment when the door would be 
opened by the parlor-maid. Claudia, who did 
not appreciate his reason, took courage from the 
fact that she got no answer; she thought, in- 
deed, that her own remark was unanswerable. 

When they had been admitted, Claudia ran 
upstairs at once to her bedroom, and was on 
the top stair before she heard Harriet telling 
her that she had prepared some supper. 

“I. don’t want any supper,” cried Claudia. 

But her husband’s voice cut her short. 

“Nonsense! You must be hungry. You' 
must come down and eat something,” said he, 
in harsh tones which frightened her. 

“Very well,” said she, meekly. “I’ll come 
down when I’ve taken my hat off.” 

And when she did come down she was pale, 
shy, depressed, a creature too despondent to be 
crushed, too taciturn to be argued with. She 
slunk into the dining-room, and appeared, in 
her little black frock, without the voluminous 
cape which had given her importance, to have 
shrunk physically as well as morally into noth- 
ing. She threw a frightened glance at her hus- 
band, and slid into her usual place at the table 
without a word. 

Nobody would have thought, looking from 
the one to the other, that it was the frowning 


138 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


husband who was to be pitied and not the poor, 
frightened little wife. But in truth Dr. Darch 
was suffering unspeakable tortures at the hands 
of the little helpless-looking woman with the big 
eyes, whom he loved the more the less he under- 
stood her. This was what it had come to with 
him, that he had given up expecting to find in 
his wife the steady-going, absolutely trustworthy 
helpmeet that, in the natural course of things, 
he had expected her to prove. But the feeling 
of insecurity in his hold upon her, instead of 
weakening the infatuation she had inspired in 
him, rather increased it. 

And now, after his sudden discovery that his 
hold upon her affections and upon her duty was 
infinitely weaker than he had supposed, he was 
in a pitiable condition of doubt as to what means 
he could use to bring back the love, the confi- 
dence, which, in some way unaccountable to 
himself, he felt that he had lost. 

He felt, with a sharp pang, that to use the 
argument of his own passionate affection would 
be, at the present stage, not only useless, but 
impossible. There was no love in her eyes, 
nothing but fear: a shuddering, cold sort of fear 
which froze the warmth of his own lips. 

So supper was eaten by both almost in silence. 
Claudia was hungry, in spite of her disclaimer, 


DR. D ARCH’S WIFE 


139 


and she ate cold chicken and apple tart with 
much relish. Dr. Darch tried to follow her ex- 
ample, but was less successful than she. Pres- 
ently he sprang up, unable to bear it any longer. 

“Claudia,” cried he, as he almost reeled 
against the mantel-piece, scarcely more master 
of his own feet than of his voice, which was play- 
ing strange tricks with him, “you were going to 
Paris. It’s no use denying it, I saw the ticket in 
your hand. Who were you going with? Why 
were you going? My God, tell me the truth!” 

Claudia, who was eating a biscuit, remained 
quite still for a minute at least. At last she 
said, fretfully, glancing at her husband furtive- 
ly, and trying to «peak in the childish voice 
which usually gave her such an air of irrespon- 
sibility: “Paris! Nonsense! What made you 
take it into your head that I — ” 

She stopped, and sprang off her chair; for Dr. 
Darch came round the table with a look in his 
eyes which struck terror into her mean little 
soul. “Don’t, don’t hurt me!” cried she, in a 
voice of piteous, cowardly terror. 

In an instant he stopped, and putting strong , 
constraint upon himself, spoke in a voice w^hich 
was nearly as level and calm as usual : 

“I’m not going to touch you, nor to frighten 
you either, if I can help it. But you must 


140 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


speak out, and tell me the truth. It cannot 
hurt you, whatever it is. I love you, whatever 
you were going to do. But I must know. Now 
don’t be silly, and pretend you’re afraid of me, 
because it’s nonsense; you know that. Sit down 
quietly, and tell me just what I ask.” 

Claudia slid quickly and quietly into the near- 
est chair, with a touching meekness which wrung 
his heart.* It was in the power of this woman 
to appeal as if with magnetic attraction to every 
fiber of his body and mind. No movement, no 
look of hers was without charm in his eyes. 
The very manner in which she sat down, and 
clasped her hands together, as if in supplication, 
had something in it so infinitely moving that for 
a few moments he looked at her, and forgot the 
words which were on his lips. 

But at last he said: “Tell me, dear, why you 
were going to Paris.” 

She looked up, and the tears welled from her 
blue eyes. Still she kept her hands clasped, 
and not with any intention of appealing. dramat- 
ically to his kindness, but innocently, naturally, 
with the demure attitude of one utterly helpless 
in the presence of a harsh judge. 

“I — I— I thought you were tired of me, 
thought you’d get on better without me!” 
mumbled she at last. 


DR. D ARCH’S WIFE 


141 


Dr. Darch was for the first moment struck 
dumb. “Thought what?” stammered he at last. 

“Thought you were not pleased with me-. 
You know you have always been finding fault 
with me lately, about one thing or other. So I 
thought — that — that you would perhaps get on 
better — if — if I left you to yourself a little 
while?’ 

She ended suddenly, and looked down on the 
carpet. Her husband was so much amazed by 
this astounding confession, which seemed indeed 
scarcely credible, that there was another pause, 
during which he stared at her in miserable per- 
plexity. When at last he spoke, it was with the 
diffidence of one who handles some new and 
mysterious subject: “You thought you would 
go away from me' for a little while! But, Clau- 
dia, do you know what that would have meant 
—to me?” 

“Oh, I would have written when I got to 
Paris,” replied she, with a touch of returning 
vivacity, as she found him more amenable. 

“Then you wouldn’t have had much time to 
yourself,” retorted Dr. Darch promptly. And 
the next moment he was kneeling beside her, 
with his arm round her. Claudia caressed him, 
and smiled. But he was not going to be satis- 
fied so easily. He must find out whether she 


142 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


was really only the harebrained creature she im- 
plied, or whether there was not something more 
serious in her freak. “You were going — alone?” 
asked he. 

“Why, yes, of course 1 was. Couldn’t you 
see I was?” 

“But what would you have done in Paris, 
all by yourself?” 

“Oh, I could have got on. I’m used to living 
by myself, you know.” 

This was true, he knew. But it was not com- 
forting, for all that. He looked at her fearfully, 
with an air of stupefaction which made her laugh. 

“Why do you look at me like that, as if I 
were some strange monstrosity?” 

“Well, that’s just what you seem to me, to 
tell you the truth.” 

“Thank you. You are not very flattering.” 

“You don’t want flattery from me. One only 
flatters the people one despises.” 

“But you despise me. I know "you do!” 

“God forbid! What strange notions have 
you got into your head? Who has been telling 
you such things?” asked Dr. Darch, in an angry 
voice of suspicion. 

“Oh, nobody has been telling me anything. 
What chance has anybody had? I live shut up 
like a nun.” 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


14*3 


Here her voice betrayed the petulance of the 
spoiled child, restless under the least restraint. 

“My dear child, surely you 'don’t think I 
could let you be free to run away from me 
whenever you took it into your head that you 
wanted a change! Is that your notion of a 
wife’s duties? Of a husband’s?” 

“Oh, you are so fond of talking about duty. 
Now what I love is pleasure.” 

“And you could find pleasure in a trip taken 
without me! Oh, Claudia!” 

“Well, I thought it would open .your eyes, 
and make you find out that you couldn’t get on 
so well without me as you seemed to think!” 

He stared at her. “Get on well without you!” 
echoed he in amazement. “Somebody has been 
making mischief, I’m afraid. Such wild no- 
tions would never have come into your silly 
little head of their own accord. Now, listen : I 
can get on without you so well that you are 
going to live more like a nun than ever.” 
Though his tone was playful, there was a look 
of settled purpose in his eyes which there was 
no mistaking. “You are suffering from too 
much liberty, and I’m going to prescribe for 
you. You are never going to have any more 
money to spend ; you are never to go up to town 
again by yourself. I’ll go with .you; I’ll go 


144 ’ 


DR. D ARCH’S WIFE 


shopping with you, and I’ll carry the purse, and 
pay for what you buy. And you are not to go 
district- visiting any more; you are to go out 
with me, and wait in the carriage while I pay 
my calls. And if you have any more tete-a- 
tetes with that little mischief-making whelp at 
the Hall I’ll break his neck for him!” 

Now to all this long tirade Claudia listened 
in dutiful silence, caressing his head the while, 
with her usual instinct of affectionate behavior. 
But in her eyes there came a cloudy, somber 
look, which he did not perceive, or which, per- 
ceiving, he did not understand. When he had 
finished by kissing her, she laughed rather 
faintly: “You will get tired of my society, 
Harry, if you have so much of it.” 

He made no violent protestations; he swore 
no oaths. But in his eyes, as he looked at her, 
there shone such a look of yearning tenderness, 
of infinite, patient, all-suffering, all-forgiving 
love, that she was. moved to throw her arms 
round his neck with an impulse of real feeling. 

“Oh, Harry,” she cried, in his ear, between 
tears and laughter, “you shouldn’t have mar- 
ried me, you really shouldn’t! I wonder how 
long it will take you to be as sure of it as I am.”' 

Harry heard her with a shuddery feeling, 
though with his lips he was stout in denial. 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


145 


CHAPTER SIXTEEN 

CLAUDIA’S LITERARY TASTES 

Though Dr. Darch did not love his wife a 
whit the less for th& strange escapade of hers 
which he had been in time to cut short, though 
perhaps he loved her the more, when he learned 
the extreme precariousness of his own tenure of 
her heart, there was a change in their relation 
toward each other after that evening. 

He kept watch over her in a hundred ways, 
left her little time to herself, tried harder to 
please, to amuse her, than he had ever done 
before. Simple-hearted fellow that he was, the 
difference in the Claudia he had known at first, 
so easily pleased with everything, and the Clau- 
dia who was now so readily bored, so eager for 
novelty and change, puzzled him immensely. 

He was, of course, not ready to believe that 
it was really her love of change rather than 
anything deeper which had made his own 
straightforward, chivalrous attentions so wel- 
come, and the simple pleasures he had offered 
her so attractive. 

Under the strict though kindly surveillance 
to which she now felt herself to be subjected, 


146 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


her spirits drooped a little. Her husband 
caught sometimes a look in her eyes which 
troubled him, a look of fear, even of something 
stronger, more antipathetic. And although on 
these occasions she either averted her eyes 
quickly, or changed her sullen look into a smile, 
the mischief had been done; Dr. Darch had 
noted the glance, and gauged the value of the 
smile. 

Another and perhaps more potent factor in 
Claudia’s growing discontent was the behavior 
of Captain Dutton, who never missed an oppor- 
tunity of conveying to her, either by words or 
by looks, the idea that he knew of some danger 
which was hanging over her head. At times 
she would persuade herself that these words 
and looks were merely the result of impotent 
malice, on account of her indifference to himself. 
But she grew less and less able, as the days 
went by, to calm her fears by this explanation. 

And at last, in a sudden panic of childish 
terror, after a chance meeting with Captain 
Dutton, in which he uttered something more 
like a threat than ever, she made a second at- 
tempt to run away. 

But her husband followed her by the next 
train, had intuition enough to seek for her at 
Mrs. Matthews’ house, and brought her back 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


147 


with more misgiving than triumph, after some 
rather awkward explanations. 

She was at first petulant, then sullen; he not 
quite so gentle as on the occasion of her first 
flight, rather more stern, rather less tender. To 
her short inquiry if it was not better to let her 
go if she wanted to, he replied that, whether she 
wanted to go or whether he would prefer to be 
without her, he was not going to let her leave 
him, even for a few hours, without his knowl- 
edge and permission. To this she said nothing. 

Nance had begun to fancy that all was not 
quite right in the young household at The Firs, 
although nobody else noticed more than that 
young Mrs. Darch was losing her spirits a little. 

Not that there was any change in Ctaudia’s 
behavior to Nance herself, of whom that charm- 
ing but willful person was really fond. Her 
only cause of complaint against Nance, in fact, 
was that the visits of the latter to The Firs were 
not frequent enough. She would have had her 
there every day and all day long, if she could 
have managed it; and this attachment of his 
wife’s to the very person who seemed to have 
most influence with her was the greatest com- 
fort Dr. Darch had. 

What Claudia liked best was to have Nance 
to herself all the morning, to talk to while she 


148 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


pottered about the house and garden, every part 
of which now showed signs of the housewifely 
tastes of the new mistress. She would show 
Nance each little improvement she made, taking 
the delight of a child in the praises she received, 
and in Nance’s astonishment at her domestic 
ingenuity. 

Although her interest in her home had shown 
some signs of flagging lately, it had by no means 
disappeared; and when Nance came up the 
drive she generally caught sight of Claudia 
rearranging window-hangings, or picking the 
dead leaves off the plants which were banked up 
high on each side of the dining-room window. 

It was on a May morning, and an interval of 
some ^eeks had elapsed since her last morning 
visit, when Nance came through the arches of 
lilacs and laburnum, and looked about in vain 
for Claudia. As she was too intimate an ac- 
quaintance not to make an entrance where she 
chose, she sauntered round the house, glancing 
up at the windows in the expectation of seeing 
Claudia, until she came round to the back of the 
house, where one of the dining-room windows, 
both those of the drawing-room, and the window 
of the morning-room opened upon the terrace. 

She had gone the whole length of the terrace, 
glancing into the rooms, and had come to the end. 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


149 


when she at last caught sight of Claudia, sitting in 
the morning-room in an easy-chair, with a book 
on her lap, over which she was poring intently. 

Nance was overwhelmed with astonishment. 
She had never seen Claudia with a book in her 
hand before*; and she had looked upon it as an 
impossibility that the doctor’s young wife should 
be able to interest herself in such a manner. 

The window was closed, so that she could not 
see what sort of literature it was which inter- 
ested young Mrs. Darch so strongly; all she 
could make out was that the volume was large 
and thick, darkly bound and dry -looking, the very 
last sort of tome from which she would have 
expected to find frivolous Claudia deriving en- 
joyment. Smiling, Nance tapped at the window. 

Claudia started up with a wild, white, scared 
face, dropping her book from beside her on the 
floor, almost as if she were trying to hide it. 

“Nance! How you startled me!” cried she. 
Adding quickly, “Come in. Come round- 
through the drawing-room. The window’s 
open.” 

Nance wondered why she did not open the 
window of the room she was in. It went down 
to the ground, like the others. However, she 
did as she was told to do, and went back, meet- 
ing Claudia again at the drawing-room door. 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


150 

“I’m so glad you’ve come,” said she, with 
effusion, as she seized her visitor’s hands and 
put her into a chair. “It’s so long since you 
have been to see me in the morning that I was 
quite startled to see you. I thought you had 
grown too ceremonious for anything but after- 
noon calls with Mrs. Darch, just when every- 
body else comes, and one can’t talk or do any- 
thing.” 

“Did you? Really? Well, you see you were 
quite wrong.” 

“Then why is it so long since you came?” 

“Well—” Nance hesitated. She hardly knew 
herself why it was that some sort of estrange- 
ment had grown up between the big house and 4 
the little one. “I — T didn’t think you wanted 
me,” she said at last. 

“Now that’s nonsense, nothing but nonsense,” 
said Claudia decidedly, as she took her friend’s 
hat off. “However, I shan’t make myself more 
disagreeable than I can help now you have come, 
for fear you shouldn’t come again. But I’ve 
missed you dreadfully.” 

“Well, I’m sorry. But, at any rate, you have 
found new resources. You always say you hate 
reading. But I see you have grown studious. 

I never was so much astonished as when I saw 
you deep in that very ponderous-looking volume.” 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


151 


Claudia laughed and blushed. 

“I was rubbing up my history,’ ’ said she. 
“I’m shockingly ignorant, you must know. I 
don’t know even how the kings come. I was 
rather ashamed of being caught, though. I 
thought I was going to burst upon you with 
a large stock of information, without letting you 
know how brand-new it was.” 

Nance laughed, and answered her in the same 
tone. She was glad to fall again into the old tone 
of intimacy, and to watch Claudia, as she used to 
do, flitting about the room, dusting her little bits 
of Dresden and Chelsea, and giving a touch to 
the pictures to make them hang straight. But 
all the time she could not help being conscious 
of a change in the young wife, something inde- 
finable which made Nance watch her furtively, 
and put to herself vague questions. 

Claudia caught her in the act. “What’s the 
matter?” asked she. “Why do you look at me 
like that out of the corners of your eyes?” 

There was a little real anxiety in her manner, 
and she glanced at herself in the glass over the 
mantel-piece, as if curious to see whether any- 
thing unusual in her appearance had prompted 
her visitor’s curiosity. 

“Do I look at you out of the corners of my eyes? 
Well, you puzzle me a little. At one moment you 


152 


DR. D ARCH’S WIFE 


seem as happy as a bird, and the next — well, you 
look as if a cloud had passed over your face.” 

Claudia smiled, and grew red. 

“Well, I suppose I feel like that,” she said. 
“But nobody else has ever noticed it.” 

“Not Harry?” 

The cloud settled on Claudia again, unmistak- 
ably. “Oh, he never notices anything,” said 
she. “He’s too stupid.” 

Nance was aghast. There was an embar- 
rassed pause. Evidently Claudia regretted her 
indiscretion, but considered it safest to offer no 
amendment’. 

A walk was presently suggested, and Claudia 
went upstairs to put her hat on, while Nance 
went into the morning-room to look at the aviary 
which stood in the west window. She stood for 
a few moments in front of the birds, and then 
threw herself down into the low chair by the 
south window in which Claudia had been sitting 
on her first appearance. 

It was an old-fashioned armchair, with a cover 
of chintz which reached to the floor. 

As Nance threw herself into it, the chair slid 
back a few inches, and Nance’s feet touched 
something which had been hidden by the long 
cover. Stooping down, she found it was a book, 
and before she had opened it, Nance recognized 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 153 

it as the volume she had seen on Claudia’s knees. 
Smiling to herself, she had the curiosity to see 
what it was. It was not a history, as Claudia 
had pretended. It was a medical work, dry and 
technical, on toxicology. 

“Why, that’s all about poisons!” said Nance 
to herself in astonishment. “What a horrid, 
morbid sort of thing- to read about!” 

After a moment’s hesitation, and debating to 
herself whether she should take Claudia to task 
for her odd taste in literature, she decided 
against doing so; she put the book down, not 
on the floor where she had found it, but on the 
table, and went out into the hall, just as she 
heard Claudia’s foot on the stairs. 


CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 

A VISIT FROM CLAUDIA 

If any thought of rallying Claudia upon her 
odd taste in books lingered in the mind of Nance 
as she crossed the hall to meet the doctor’s 
young wife, it was driven out by the first sight 
of Claudia’s bright, sweet face, as she came 
down the stairs singing softly to herself. 

“I’m so glad you came!” she broke out, as 
she jumped the three bottom stairs, in one of 
the queer little hoydenish fits that came upon 


154 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


her sometimes, bat which seemed,* to those who 
loved her, not unbecoming. “I was in low 
spirits this morning, miserable, in fact, and 
now I feel all right again. You might come 
more often. I do get so dull in the mornings — 
and in the evenings, too, for that matter !” 

“Dull! I thought you were never dull!” 

“ Well, I never am when you’re here,” replied 
Glaudia, with charmingly ingenuous flattery. 
“But in the mornings — when I’m all alone — 
oh, dear, I do get bored!” 

“Why, I thought your household duties made 
you happy! Looking after the house, and all 
that. You’ve got quite a reputation among us 
for your ‘exemplary performance of your do- 
mestic duties,’ as the old ladies call it. Don’t 
tell me it’s undeserved.” 

“Oh, no, it isn’t. I like my house; and I like 
looking after it. And at first, you know, I could 
find amusement in that all the morning. But 
one can’t do that forever.” 

“Well, why don’t you go with Harry, then, 
as he always wants you to-do?” 

“Oh, I get enough of his society in the even- 
ings!” 

“Claudia!” Claudia laughed and blushed a 
little. 

“You needn’t look so shocked. I didn’t mean 


DR. D ARCH’S WIFE 155 

it — at least, not exactly. But he’s grown so 
severe lately, so much like a schoolmaster who 
doesn’t let his pupils have any holidays, that 
— well, that I begin to feel sometimes that I’ve 
had enough of it.” 

They were in the open air by this time. Claudia 
made a little expressive movement, so eloquent 
of restless discontent that Nance was filled with 
real alarm. 

“Oh, Claudia, don’t talk like that, you mustn’t 
talk like that. You frighten me,” she pleaded. 
“I’m sure you don’t know, dear, how much 
Harry loves* you. It seems dreadful for me 
to have to tell you so; you ought to know it, 
to understand it without that. You are never 
out of his thoughts; he can’t speak without 
bringing in your name. Doesn’t it touch you 
to know that? To feel that, as you must do?” 

Nance had insight enough to perceive the great 
lack of depth there was in the nature of this ami- 
able and attractive creature; but this knowledge 
did not destroy the charm Claudia had for her. 
The doctor’s young wife was so essentially ferui 
nine, so unaffected, and so unostentatiously mod- 
est and simple in her manners, that even honest, 
straightforward Nance found herself indulgent 
to this woman, whose frailties and faults would 
have seemed of a kind truly shocking in another 


156 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


woman. And Claudia always took her friend’s 
admonitions in good part, being satisfied that 
Nance’s goodwill was real. 

She now turned to her companion with a bright 
and affectionate smile. 

“Yes, I do know all that,” she assented in- 
differently. “But what good does it do me 
never to be out of .Harry’s thoughts? Or to 
know that he bores other people by talking 
about me? I’d rather not be in his thoughts 
so much, nor in his sight either. I should like to 
be allowed to move about sometimes as if I were 
a free creature, and hot a nun in a convent. I 
declare I envy the very sparrows, because they 
can fly over the wall when they like.” 

Nance did not quite know what to say to this. 
This unorthodox fancy for wandering was the 
sort of thing that had never before come into 
the experience or even the imagination of the 
well-bred and conventionally reared lady. TheFe 
was a pause before she answered : “But, Claudia, 
I don’t understand. How can you want to wan- 
der about by yourself? To go away by yourself? 
It’s not natural in a woman. A man can do it, 
of course, but we can’t. Where could you go, 
what could you do, if Harry were to let you 
start off where you pleased this very day?” 

Into Claudia’s fair face there came at once a 


DR. D ARCH’S WIFE 


157 


gleam of excitement, of eager longing, which 
struck Nance dumb. With a gesture of in- 
describable self-abandonment, of easy gayety, 
Claudia said quickly: “Oh, if he only would, 
if he only would! But he won’t, I know he 
won’t. He’ll keep me here walled up, to listen 
to somebody or other’s travels in some place I 
never heard of, and to smirk and to chatter to 
his old women patients till — till — ” 

“Till what?” quickly asked Nance, who saw 
a somber look in Claudia’s blue eyes. 

“Till we’re both gray-headed, I suppose,” fin- 
ished off Claudia, with an evident change from 
the ending which had been on her lips. 

She perceived that she was seriously alarming 
her companion, so she made haste to atone by 
laughing at her own discontent, and by pouring 
out praises of her husband’s kindness, and by 
scolding herself for her own ingratitude. 

And from this moment she would not allow 
any more repinings to escape her, but threw her- 
self into quite another mood, interesting herself 
in the gossip of the place with no further recur- 
rence to her own affairs. 

One discovery Nance made in the course of 
the walk, which gave her quite a new impres- 
sion of Claudia, by revealing a characteristic she 
had never noticed in her before. Claudia was 


158 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


what ladies call “nervous. ” Thus, a tramp who 
followed them at a little distance, a harmless- 
looking person enough, filled her with uneasi- 
ness. Again and again she looked round her- 
self, and more than once she asked Nance if the 
man were still following them. And again, 
when they had got back to the grounds of The 
Firs, Claudia glanced to right and left, peered 
among the trees, and started at the least sound 
of crackling or rustling among the branches. 
Nance presently laughed outright. 

“Claudia, I can’t help laughing at you,” cried 
she at last. “Here you are talking to me about 
scouring the face of the earth like a man, when 
you can’t even bear the sound of the snapping 
of a twig without a start. It is rather funny, 
now isn’t it?” 

Claudia reddened a little, and tried to furnish 
an ^explanation. ' But she was not very success- 
ful, and was evidently annoyed with herself for 
having betrayed her feminine tremors. 

“Never mind, dear,” said Nance gently, as 
she put her hand protectingly in Claudia’s arm, 
“I like you all the better for your inconsistency. 
In fact, you wouldn’t be Claudia at all if you 
were anything else.” 

“ What do you mean by that?” asked Claudia 
curiously. 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


159 


“ Why, that you jare daring without being 
brave; a little deceitful sometimes, and yet can- 
did if you’re caught” — and she laughed mis- 
chievously, while her companion reddened and 
looked down — “that you are open without tell- 
ing one a word about yourself; and affectionate 
without, I do believe, caring a straw about any- 
body.” Nance had rushed through this speech, 
not without a sense of its daring. But Claudia 
received it with rapturous delight. 

“Now that’s very clever, Nance, very clever,” 
she said with admiration. “I could never have 
said such a thing, or thought it, or even have 
known it. Yet it’s quite true, I really believe; 
at least true all but this : I do care for some- 
body; I do care for you, Nance. You’re not 
like other women. You do tell the truth, and 
not only when you want to annoy people. You 
do believe that I care for you, don’t you, Nance?” 

She said this with so much feeling that Nance 
was touched, and readily owned that she believed 
in this affection, of which she was assured so 
prettily. She took courage, however, to add: 
“But I would rather feel sure of your strong 
affection for some one else!” 

Claudia answered readily: “You mean for 
Harry? Oh, that’s all right. Of course, I’m 
fond of him. He’s my husband. I thought 


1(50 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


that was taken for granted by good people like 
you!” 

Nance joined in the laugh against herself, and 
left Claudia on the terrace, on the plea of re- 
turning home in time for luncheon. 

She said nothing to her aunt about the con- 
versation she had had with Claudia, nor about 
the book she had found her reading. Mothers 
and aunts, as they approach middle age, have 
a knack of looking at things from the wrong 
point of view, and of discussing them in a tone 
which sets on edge the teeth of the younger gen- 
eration. But Nance suffered many a pang as 
she thought of the young couple at The Firs, 
and of the breach between them, which no one 
knew of but herself. 

She, however, could not but be conscious that 
it was a serious one; and her heart ached for 
the man she loved and for the woman she liked, 
joined by a bond which meant to the one so 
much and to the other so little. 

For the next few days Nance saw little of 
Claudia; she felt some shyness about going 
again to The Firs, where Claudia’s frankness 
pained her; and she hoped against hope that, 
by letting a little interval elapse before she and 
Claudia met again in such confidential fashion, 
the fit of discontent from which the young wife 


DR. D ARCHES WIFE 


161 


had been suffering on her last visit might have 
passed away. . 

It was about ten days after her morning visit 
at The Firs, when Nance and her aunt were 
startled, just as they were bidding each other 
good-night at their bedroom doors, by a violeut 
ringing and knocking at the hall door. 

Nance ran downstairs, and opened the door, 
to find Claudia, white, trembling, hoarse, out- 
side. “Claudia! What’s the matter?” 

Claudia came in and shut the door behind 
her. She had no hat on, but had drawn over 
her head the hood of the golf -cape she had evi- 
dently seized in a hurry. She leaned against 
the wall of the narrow hall, and stared at Nance 
for a few seconds without speaking. 

“What is it? What has happened? Oh, 
Claudia, do speak!” cried Nance, in terror. 

By this time Mrs. Darch had come down the 
stairs, and seen the pale, frightened face of her 
visitor. “Harry! Has something happened to 
Harry?” asked the elder lady, less emotional 
than her daughter, and therefore more easily 
able to guess what was amiss. Claudia bowed 
her head in assent. Nance could not speak. 

“An accident? What is it?” cried Mrs. Darch. 

Claudia struggled to get back the voice she 
had lost. “He is ill. I don’t know what is the 


162 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


matter with him. I came to you to know what 
I should do/’ stammered she. 

“And has some one gone for another doctor?” 
asked Mrs. Darch quickly. 

“N — no, I — I didn’t know what to do. So I 
came to you.” 

“Silly child! You should have gone to Dr. 
Rigden. Nance, put on your hat and run to his 
house. And I’ll go back with Claudia.” 

Young Mrs. Darch looked from the one to the 
other, white, frightened, absolutely helpless and 
stupefied in this emergency. She saw Nance’s 
pale, set face, and tried to speak to her. But 
Nance gave her only one shy, frightened look, 
and ran past her out of the house. 

Meanwhile the older lady got ready for the 
walk, and questioned her as she fastened her 
cloak. “Tell me all about it. When was he 
taken ill? Did he tell you to come to us?” 

“N — no,” said Claudia, who hung back when 
the elder lady was ready to start. “He didn’t 
tell me to come. I was frightened, and I — I 
had no one to go to but you.” 

“Well?” 

Instead of following the elder lady down the 
steps, Claudia sank down on the nearest hall 
chair. “I — I can’t go back. I can’t!” she whis- 
pered, with chattering teeth. “I’m afraid to!” 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


163 


“Oh, Claudia, you don’t think — you don’t 
mean— that he’s — dead!” gasped Mrs. Darch. 

Claudia shivered. Then she looked up and 
answered in a hoarse, tremulous voice: “He 
was not dead when I came away. But — I’m 
afraid — afraid. He was very ill.” 

“Oh, Claudia, and you left him!” 

Claudia started up, and staggered down the 
steps, supported by the elder lady. She looked 
as if she hardly knew what she was doing. And 
old Mrs. Darch soothed her, making^ allowance 
at once for the agitation into which the terrible 
shock had thrown the helpless young wife. 

‘'Never mind, dear, never mind. I was not 
reproaching you. I’m sure you hardly knew 
what you were doing. Stay here one moment, 
while I shut the door, and then we’ll go to The 
Firs as fast as we can.” ^ 

One of the servants had by this time come 
downstairs, attracted by the unusual disturb- 
ance. To her the elder Mrs. Darch communi- 
cated the bad news, before starting for the doc- 
tor’s house. 

Claudia waited, inert, lifeless, silent; she 
asked no questions, gave vague answers to those 
put to her; she seemed to be paralyzed by the 
shock. It was with great relief, therefore, that 
old Mrs. Darch learned from the servant who 


16 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


opened the door of The Firs to them that Dr. 
Darch, though in great pain, was no worse. 
Claudia heard this, and, without another word 
to any one, went straight into the dining-room 
and sank down on the sofa. 

While old Mrs. Darch, puzzled by this con- 
duct, which seemed to her altogether inconsist- 
ent with wifely duty, called to her to ask if she 
were not going upstairs, there was another ring, 
and Nance came in with Dr. Rigden. 

While the doctor went upstairs at once, old 
Mrs. Darch caught her niece by the arm and 
drew her quickly to the dining-room door. 

“Nance,” cried she, “doesn’t Claudia take it 
strangely? She has not gone upstairs. She is 
in there.” 

Without a moment’s hesitation, Nance sprang 
acros^,the hall, and went quickly into the din- 
ing-room. She was just in time to see Claudia 
jump up from the sofa and make a dash for the 
window. “Claudia!” cried she, “Claudia!” 

Young Mrs. Darch stopped, and turned, 
almost fiercely. “Well, what do you want?” 
cried she sullenly. 

“The doctor is here; I’ve brought him.” 

There was a pause. 

“What — does he say?” asked Claudia at last. 

“We don’t know yet. He’s only just come. 


Dft. D ARCH’S WIFE 


166 


Don’t be so miserable, dear, until we know 
whether it’s serious.' How did it come on?” 

“Soon af-fter dinner,” stammered Claudia. 
“He -said he was in pain. And then he grew 
worse, and — and I got frightened, and ran to 
you. I suppose he’s caught a chill.” 

“Hadn’t you better go up and see the doctor, 
while he’s with him?” suggested Nance. 

“Oh — oh, yes, I suppose I’d better.” 

She seemed, however, reluctant to leave 
Nance, to whom she began to cling like a child, 
plucking nervously at her gown, and looking, as 
if beseechingly, into her face. “Don’t, don’t look 
at me like. that, dear,” said Nance presently. “I 
can’t do anything; I only wish I could. We 
must hear what Dr. Rigden says.” 

Still Claudia showed no disposition to hasten 
upstairs. She went slowly as far as the door, 
indeed, but then she stopped and turned back, 
apparently alarmed by some sound she heard in 
the room overhead, where her husband was. 
Then she fairly ran into the arms of Nance, 
whispering: “You go and ask, and find out. I 
can’t. It makes me cry so. And— and I don’t 
want to disturb him.” 

“Very well, dear.” 

Nance went upstairs, and met Harriet, the 
el 1 erly parlor-maid, who had consternation in 


166 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


her face. “Oh, what is it?” faltered Nance, 
hardly able to speak. 

“Why, Miss Nance,” answered Harriet in a 
tremulous whisper, “it’s something he’s eaten, 
Dr. Rigden says. I’ve got to see that nothing 
that was left from dinner is thrown away.” 

“Wliat!” cried Nance in' stupefaction. “Not 
—not—” 

“Yes, Miss Nance, poison; that’s what Dr. 
Rigden says. And — and the master himself 
thinks so too.” 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 

CLAUDIA SURPRISES NANCE 

Nance was struck dumb. A horrible sus- 
picion had entered her mind, and the longer it 
remained the more firmly did it plant itself. 
She let Harriet pass her on the way downstairs, 
and then she lingered about in the corridor, 
now pacing up and down, now listening for a 
reassuring sound from the room where Dr. 
Rigden and old Mrs. Darch were shut in with 
the patient. She was in such agony of mind, 
between her fears for Harry and the dreadful 
suspicion of his wife which she could not stifle, 
that rest for more .than a moment at ft time was 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


167 


impossible for her. She longed to be doing 
something to help, and yet feared to intrude by 
so much as a knock at the door to offer her ser- 
vices. There seemed to be plenty of people about 
to fulfill the errands of fetching and carrying 
from the kitchen. It was when Harriet came 
up again with milk and eggs for the sick-room 
that Nance sent in her message asking if there 
was anything she could do. 

In answer, Dr. Rigden himself came to the 
door. “Where’s young Mrs. Darch gone to?” 
asked he in a sharp, dry voice. 

4 4 She’s — she’s —downstairs. ’ ’ 

“Why doesn’t she go up to her husband?” 

“She’s — frightened. When I left her she was 
crying.” 

The doctor uttered an exclamation of incredu- 
lity, and his eyes met those of Nance. Each saw 
the suspicion in the face of the other. 

“Are you and Mrs. Darch — your aunt I mean 
— going to stay here to-night?” 

“Yes; oh, yes, I suppose so.” 

“Well, you must. And, since young Mrs. 
Darch is so much overcome, ^you, Miss Incledon, 
had better keep her under your own eye.” 

Nance looked up, very pale. 

“You — you are afraid of her doing — some 
harm — to herself?” faltered she. 


168 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


The doctor nodded dryly, and was about to 
disappear into the room when Nance, by a gest- 
ure of entreaty, detained him. 

“How is he?” asked she, with haggard eyes. 

“As well as can be expected, considering the 
dose he must have swallowed.” * 

‘‘Dose— -of what?” 

“I can’t tell for certain at present, but the 
symptoms point to an irritant poison, possibly 
antimony or arsenic.” 

For a moment Nance was unable to speak. 
Presently she whispered: “He won’t— Hie?” 

Dr. Rigden looked at her curiously. Here 
was the tone, the accent he would have expected 
in the wife. “I hope not,” he said briefly. And 
then he excused himself and shut the door. 

Nance went downstairs, and hesitated in the 
hall. She felt that she did not want to meet 
Claudia just then. But the dining-room door 
was ajar, and while she lingered it opened soft- 
ly, and Claudia, looking rather scared, looked 
out. “Oh, Nance,” said she in a whisper, “was 
that you talking to the doctor upstairs?” 

“Yes,” said Nance shortly, with a glance of 
- irrepressible repugnance. 

“Oh! what did he say?” 

“About what?” 

“Don’t be silly. About Harry, of course.” 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


1G9 


“He says he has been poisoned.’ ’ 

Claudia had come out into the hall by this 
time, and she listened with an air of great as- 
tonishment and incredulity. 

“Poisoned! Oh, but that’s nonsense! What 
should he have taken poison for?” 

Nance turned away abruptly, without answer- 
ing. “Where are you going?”' asked Claudia. 
“You will stay here, I suppose, all night?”- 

“If I may, I should like to.” 

“Oh, yes, do. I don’t want to be left alone. 
Will you go to bed?” 

“Oh, no.” . 

“Very well. We’ll sit up in the drawing- 
room. You can have one sofa, “and I the 
other. ’ ’ 

“I couldn’t go to sleep,” said Nance rather 
severely, “until I hear that poor Harry is bet- 
ter.” 

“ Well, you had better lie down,” said Claudia, 
taking no notice of the rebuke. “It’s nice and 
warm in there; I’ve kept up the fire myself.” 

She led the way into the drawing-room, and 
set Nance what she called a good example, by 
throwing herself upon one of the couches. 

Nance, however, sat down in an armchair by 
the fire. She believed herself to be too full of 
anxiety to sleep; and she felt, rather than knew, 


170 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


that Claudia, for all her affected coolness, did 
not sleep either. 

The night hours passed slowly by, and the 
movement overhead gradually ceased. This 
Nance took for a good sign, and, between three 
and four o’clock, she herself fell into a doze. 

She was awakened by a sharp pull at her 
frock; and, opening her eyes with a start, she 
found Claudia, very white of face, and looking, 
with her disordered hair and distended eyes, 
more like a sad Madonna than ever, sitting on 
a footstool not far from her knees. 

“What — what’s the matter?” stammered 
Nance, half asleep. 

“Oh, Nance, I thought I’d better tell you,” 
whispered Claudia hoarsely, with white lips. 
“You won’t tell, and nobody can find it out — I 
did do it — with arsenic. I found it in the sur- 
gery. I put it in the powdered sugar on his 
strawberries — at dessert. Of course he didn’t 
see me. He never sees anything — that matters. 
And nobody can find it out, because of course 
the plates have been washed since. You won’t 
tell, will you? Because I shall be put in prison 
if you do.” And as she spoke two tears of 
compassion — for herself — welled out of her great 
blue eyes and rolled quickly down her cheeks. % 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


171 


CHAPTER NINETEEN 

CLAUDIA GIVES NANCE A LESSON 

For a few moments after Claudia had made 
her appalling confession, Nance could only stare 
at her without speaking. Although she had 
harbored the strongest suspicions of this amaz- 
ing woman, this avowal, made in the calmest 
accents, and in the simplest possible manner, 
froze her blood. She could only look at the 
lovely face, and wonder why God had given 
this callous soul such an exquisite envelope. 

In that moment Claudia’s face, with the eye- 
brows slightly puckered, the sweet mouth tremu- 
lous and half-open, the wonderful, languid eyes, 
looked more like a picture of some martyred saint 
than it had ever done before. 

Nance roused herself with a strong effort from 
.the stupor into which she had been thrown. 

“Claudia!” she cried, “have you no heart? 
Do you know what you are saying? If— if * 
Harry dies, you will be a murderess!” 

Her voice sank to a terrible whisper on the 
last word. But Claudia, though she shivered, 
smiled faintly the next moment. 


m 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


“Oh, no,” she said confidently, “he won’t die. 
I wouldn’t have told you if he had been going to 
die. I waited to be sure first.” 

Nance uttered a low cry of shuddering disgust. 

“You must be mad. I hope you are mad!” 
she said shortly, as she tried to rise and free 
herself from the contamination of the callous 
creature’s presence. But Claudia seized her 
gown, and forced her to reseat herself. 

“I should have gone mad if things had gone 
on as they’ve been going lately, ” she said dogged- 
ly . “ Listen, Nance, and don’t be silly. I didn’t 

want to kill Harry — ” 

“Oh, hush— sh!” 

“I only wanted to frighten him. I wanted to 
make him let me go.” 

“Go!” 

“Yes. I’m tired of it, tired of him; oh, dead- 
ly, deadly tired. You can’t understand how 
tired! It’s all very well for you, used to your 
darning and your sewing and your little bits of 
gossip, and your little teas and your tennis 
and your twaddle, to lay down the law for me, 
who’ve been used to a different sort of life! 
But it’s not right, it’s not fair. You can’t 
understand !” 

“But, but,” stammered Nance, surprised to 
find herself arguing with the creature, impelled 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


173 


by the passionately human, earnest heart-cry to 
throw aside her prejudices, and meet her on her 
own ground, “you seemed to be so happy ! Hap- 
pier than anybody!” 

“So I was — at first. It was new, and I like 
novelty. But when the novelty had worn off, 
and I wanted a change, I couldn’t get it. He 
wouldn’t let me go.” 

“Of course not. Your husband!” 

“Oh, well, now he’ll have to. You must per- 
suade him, Nance. I tell you I have a strong 
reason for wishing to go ; something will happen 
which will make a great scandal if he doesn’t.” 

“But your going away from your husband 
would be a scandal !” 

“Oh, no. I could go away for change of air, 
for my health. And then I could put an adver- 
tisement in the paper saying I was dead. And 
then nobody could say anything, and he’d be 
free.” 

“How could he be free, when you’re his wife?” 
cried Nance, with a hot blush. 

Claudia did not immediately answer; but she 
threw at Nance a quick glance out of the cor- 
ners of her eyes. “Well, I should never trouble 
him again,” she said at last. 

There was a long pause. 

“Nance, can’t you persuade him, now you 


174 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


know?” said she at last, so earnestly, so im- 
ploringly, that her companion was suddenly 
moved, in the midst of her abhorrence, to a 
strange sense of pity. 

“Why,” said Nance at last, “when he knows, 
and I suppose he will guess, what you’ve done, 
I should think he would be only too glad to let 
you go.” 

But Claudia tossed her head contemptuously. 

“Oh, that won’t make any difference,” she 
said dejectedly. “It isn’t big things, important 
things like that that disgust a man, and cure 
him of caring for you ! If anything, they make 
him worse. They make him feel that he’s not 
sure of you yet, and that’s the very way to keep 
him up to thejnark.” 

Nance listened in alarm and disgust. She was 
gathering, she felt, experience of a world of which 
she and the women of her own class know little, 
and are supposed to know nothing. But, like 
all real experience, it had some fascination ; and 
she heard in attentive silence. 

And, looking and listening, she understood 
and believed. She felt that there was a terrible 
truth in Claudia’s placid statement of her own 
power over Harry ; if she herself was conquered, 
in spite of her better judgment, into lenient con- 
sideration of this strange creature, how much 


DR. darch’s wife 175 

stronger must be the attraction she had for the 
man who loved her! 

“Claudia,” she said presently, “if he knows, 
and is ready to forgive you, won’t that make 
you sorry, and— and grateful to him?” 

To her astonishment, Claudia sprang up and 
replied with energy hardly to be expected from 
the weakness of her physical resources : “No! I 
shan’t be grateful till he lets me go. I tell you 
I hate him, I’m afraid of him, more afraid of 
him than I’ve ever been of anybody in all my 
life!” 

And it was clear to her listener, who watched 
the changes in the fair face with painful inter- 
est, that there was no affectation in this avowal. 
Claudia, for all her little airs of bravado and in- 
dependence, was a coward. She felt herself to 
be in tho grasp of a tyrant from whom there 
could be no escape but death; now she had shot 
her bolt, and remained inert, exhausted after 
the ineffectual effort to free herself. 

She slunk back to her sofa after this last out- 
burst, and rolling herself up in a rug, either 
went to sleep or pretended to do so. 

Toward morning Nance went softly upstairs 
to try to find out something about the condition 
of the patient. It was with a deep feeling of 
thankfulness that she learned that the danger 


176 


DR. DARCH’S WIPE 


was over; but this was followed by a pang at 
the thought of the misery which must be in 
store for the fatally ill- matched couple. 

And then she stayed away from the drawing- 
room, with the half-acknowledged hope that 
Claudia would seize this chance to escape. 

Young Mrs. Darch, however, was too much 
broken down, after the failure of her desperate 
act, to take such an energetic step. 

Nance and her aunt had scarcely met in the 
morning - room for breakfast, when Claudia, 
looking pale, but very pretty in a fresh morn- 
ing gown, came into the room. 

As care had been taken by everybody to keep 
any suspicions they might have formed from the 
ears of old Mrs; Darch, Claudia found that lady 
ready to welcome her as affectionately as ever. 
To the elder lady’s questions as to why she had 
kept away from the patient, Claudia, was ready 
with the. excuse that Nance had kept her away, 
thinking that, in the hysterical state she was in, 
she would have been in the way. And it amazed 
Nance to see with what quiet audacity Claudia 
now made an accomplice of her, as it were, and 
told outrageous falsehoods with easy confidence 
in their passing without contradiction. 

They all sat down to breakfast,, and Claudia 
had the teapot in her hand when the door opened 


DR, DARCH’S WIFE 


177 


and Dr. Darch tottered, rather than walked, into 
the room. 

Nance almost screamed. Old Mrs. Darch ut- 
tered a shrill cry. Claudia turned pale, threw 
him a sidelong glance, and went on with her oc- 
cupation for about two seconds, as if she did not 
know what she was doing. But on Mrs. Darch’s 
turning to her with an amazed question she re- 
covered herself, got up from her chair, and ran 
to her husband. 

“Oh, Harry,” she cried, in a voice which was 
a little tremulous, “you — you ought not to have 
come down.” 

Her voice was broken, hysterical; she threw 
herself into his arms with so much vehemence 
that, not being so firm on his feet as usual, Dr. 
Darch narrowly escaped being thrown down. 
As it was he staggered, and fell, clinging to 
her, into the nearest chair. Nance was watch- 
ing, aghast, holding her breath. 

Old Mrs. Darch, who saw in this nothing but 
the meeting between loving husband and devoted- 
wife after they had thought themselves parted 
forever, turned away in tears, and would have 
left the room, but that Claudia, almost in a 
scream, bade her stay. 

Dr. Darch had not yet spoken. He was lean- 
ing against Claudia’s shoulder, as was to be ex- 


178 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


pected in a man weak from severe illness; but 
his eyes sought hers with an anxious expression 
which cut Nance to the heart. He must guess; 
he must know; she felt sure of it. 

And Claudia had just this one grace, that she 
would not meet his eyes. ■'] 

Nance could not bear it. She felt that if she 
stayed there she could not answer for herself. 
She slipped quietly out of the room. 

Half an hour afterward Claudia found her. 
Young Mrs. Darch had lost her culprit’s air, 
and recovered her spirits. Nance could scarcely 
bear to look at her, and when she was forced to 
do so, did not attempt to conceal the anger and 
disgust she felt; for she was no longer to be de- 
ceived; she knew by the absence of all appear- 
ance of remorse or softness about Claudia that 
that young woman was rejoicing frankly at hav- j 
v ing been let off easily, and not at her husband’s 
escape from death. 

Claudia perceived her companion’s coldness, . 
and resented it, taking now a much higher hand j 
than she had done during the night . 

“It’s very absurd of you to put on these airs 
to me, as if I were a naughty child just come 
out of the corner!” she said in great anger. 
“Whatever I do, my conduct is no affair of 
yours. And if my husband overlooks anything 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


179 


silly that I do, nobody else has a right to think 
twice about it.” 

Nance said nothing to this. But when she 
presently rose, and walked toward the door, 
Claudia asked her, in a much humbler tone, 
where she was going. 

“I’m going home now,” said Nance. “I have 
a great deal to do this morning.” 

Claudia was by her side in a moment, coax- 
ing, entreating, with all the old arsenal of cling- 
ing ways, gentle looks, pleading smiles. 

“No, no, don’t go yet,” she whispered eager- 
ly. “I want you to stay here a few days — Mrs. 
Darch will spare you if I ask her. I’m sorry if 
I was tiresome just now; but you won’t bear 
malice, I know. Look here, it’s very awkward 
for me — for me and Harry — just now, isn’t it? 
I do feel sorry, really I do, and I want to be 
good. But you must stay and help me. Do, 
Nance, do. You’re fond of Harry, even if you 
don’t like me, and you will help to smooth it 
over, for his sake, now, won’t you?” 

Nance was bewildered, carried off her feet. 
Was the incomprehensible creature in earnest 
at last? Touched, in her own fashion, by the 
goodness shown to her? 

“You do care .then, more than you pretend? 
You do feel some remorse, some — some — ” 


180 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


“Oh, yes, I do, I feel everything’,” interrupt 
Claudia, who saw that the tears were raini 
down Nance’s cheeks. “I feel it all, but I ca 
show it j ust yet. Harry is very good, but — does: 
he look ugly this morning?” 

“Claudia!” 

“Oh, don’t be cross again, now don’t. I oi 
mean that — that it will be easier to be sorry, a 
to feel good when he doesn’t look quite so yell< 
and green. Come, you mustn’t be angrjr 1 
cause I tell you just how I feel.” 

“Feel! You don’t feel. I don’t belie ve^y 
can feel!” cried Nance. • 

“Well, if I can’t, you ought to bear with n 
because, of course, in that case it’s not my fault 
retorted Claudia sweetly. 

She had her own way, of course; Nance thir 
ing it wiser, for Harry’s sake, to agree. Clauc 
would hardly dare to commit any fresh outra 
while she was under the same roof. And inde 
she gave her a solemn warning that she won 
not scruple to accuse' her openly if the offer] 
were repeated. Claudia was shocked by the su 
gestion. She had repented sincerely, she said 


DR. DARCH’S W*FE 


181 


CHAPTER TWENTY 

GOOD-BY 

Nance soon discovered that she was to be 
"used by Claudia as a kind of barrier between 
her and her husband, whom she treated as an 
invalid, and with whom she declined to be left 
en tete-ti-tete. For three days they all lived 
uncomfortably, each full of thoughts which 
♦ could not be revealed to the others, and all bur- 
dened by a sense that something must happen to 
break up the situation. 

Nance was treated as a confidante by both 
husband and wife, but the confidence was never 
complete. When she was left, as Claudia some- 
times took care to leave her, alone with Harry, 
he looked at her with furtive eyes, as if wonder- 
ing what she had in her mind, and whether she 
was going to make to him some communication 
about his wife. But although there was confi- 
dence in his eyes, it never got as far as his lips; 
he was unhappy, gloomy, taciturn, but he held 
his tongue. 

When Claudia was* alone with Nance, on the 
other hand, she chattered away fast enough. 


•DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


182 


But it was about everything in the world but 
her husband; after that first most unusual burst 
of communicativeness, she appeared to have for- 
gotten the subject altogether. 

But Nance knew that this frivolity was as- 
sumed; there was always in Claudia’s blue eyes 
a look as if she was waiting, waiting anxiously, 
for something to happen. 

And on the fourth day of this strange state of 
affairs at The Firs something, though not. the 
thing expected, did come to pass. 

Nance and Claudia were sitting in the morn- 
ing-room after breakfast— Claudia busy with her 
birds, Nance sitting idle — when Harriet came 
in and announced that there was a person in the 
dining-room who wished to see Mrs. Darch. 

Claudia turned pale, and said not a word. 
Nance saw that “something dreadful” was 
going to happen, and sprang up from her chair. 

“A man or a woman?” she asked quietly. 
“Somebody from the village?” 

“No, ma’am, nobody from the village. It’s 
a gentleman, a stranger. He didn’t give any 
name.” 

Claudia had turned her back, and was going 
on with her occupation as if she was not com 
cerned. But the moment Harriet had left the 
room she turned quickly, and revealed a counte- 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


183 


nance of such terrible pallor, such haggard, des- 
perate misery, that Nance was silenced, shocked. 

Seeing her companion’s look of sympathetic 
alarm, Claudia tried to laugh. Then she nodded 
feebly, with an attempt to recover her usual 
careless manner: “It’s a detective,” she said in 
a husky voice. “And he’s come after me. I 
knew he would. It’s that hateful little Regie 
Dutton’s doing — all because I snubbed him. 
That’s what comes of being good.” And she 
sank, trembling, into a chair. 

“Oh!” murmured Nance. 

“What shall I do?” said Claudia in a piteous 
voice. “If I go in he’ll take me away to prison; 
if I don’t go, he’ll come after me, and it will be 
the same thing in the end, only with more of a 
scene, more of a scandal. Oh, I’ve thought it 
all out so often! I doii’t know what to do!” 

She was in a panic of terror, but quieter, more 
self-possessed than Nance would have expected. 
As she said, she had discounted the effect of this 
visit by having expected it so long. 

“What— what is it for?” asked Nance in a 
whisper. 

“Oh, well I took something which they say 
wasn’t mine. But it was. The things were all 
mine,” said Claudia energetically. 

“Oh, Claudia! It can’t be possible!” 


184 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


Bat young Mrs. Darch said nothing more. 
She remained lost in thought, until they were 
both startled by a step outside, and a tap at the 
door. They looked at each other, but remained 
silent. The knock was repeated. 

“Oh, come in,” said Claudia at last, in a tone 
of desperation. 

The door opened, and there entered, slowly, 
painfully, leaning on a stick, with all the signs of 
extreme infirmity, a man between fifty and sixty 
years of age, who looked many years older; a 
small, shriveled-looking man, carefully dressed, 
and not without signs by which an observant 
eye might have guessed his profession to be that 
of a solicitor. “Susan!” cried he in a trembling 
voice, as soon as he saw Claudia. 

The doctor’s wife sprang up,, with such a 
change in her manner from listlessness to vivac- 
ity, from abject fear to astonishment and some- 
thing like hope, that Nance could only stare 
from the one to the other in amazement and 
intense curiosity. 

“Tom!” cried Claudia. She did not make a 
movement toward him, but she watched him 
with interest and apprehension. 

“Oh, Susan, how could you leave me? I’ve 
had a stroke, all through your going away, and 
I’m only just able to get about again, and it’s 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


185 


only by a bit of luck that I’ve found you out.” 
At this point he seemed to become aware, for 
the first time, that there was a third person in 
the room. It was Claudia’s own rapid glances 
at Nance which drew his attention to her, and 
which now caused him to stop short. 

But after a moment’s embarrassed silence 
Claudia stopped Nance, as the latter was on her 
way to the door. “No, no, don’t go. You’ll 
have to know everything, and — and, besides — ” 
she broke off with a laugh. “You’ve not 
come to have me put in prison, then? For tak- 
ing the things I did— the money, and all that?” 
she asked, turning abruptly to the newcomer. 

“Oh no, oh no. I’ve come to take you back, 
if you’ll only come. I’ll forgive everything, 
everything; I only want you back again.” 
There was a short pause, and then he added 
•tremulously: “I’ve forgiven Tom. But there, 
there, I’ll forgive everything.” 

Nance had grown very pale. She began to 
understand what manner of offense it was that 
the stranger had to forgive. Rightly interpret- 
ing the look of horror in her eyes, Claudia 
turned to Nance, and said petulantly: “It’s of 
no use to look shocked, Nance*. It isn’t as if it 
were the first time you had had to do it for me. 
Mr. Sanderson’s my husband.” 


186 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


‘‘But — Harry!” cried Nance below her breath. 

Claudia reddened a little. 

“Oh, well,” said she, “he ought to be glad to 
be rid of me. You see I’m not really his wife 
at all.” 

Nance was shocked and repelled by the levity, 
the irrepressible relief, which Claudia betrayed 
in every look, in every tone. Such a happy 
issue out of what she would have called her 
“troubles” she had never even dared to hope for. 

“I — I think I’ll go and put on my things at 
once,” she said, turning quickly away. And be- 
fore either of her companions could speak, she 
had darted out of the room and up the stairs. 

Nance looked at Mr. Sanderson, who had sunk 
down in a chair, looking pale and agitated, but 
fatuously happy. She saw that this was an- 
other victim of Claudia’s charms, even more to 
be pitied than Harry. He was quite conscious 
of the difficulties of the situation, and was cour- 
teously apologetic, in a manner pitiful to see. 

“I am very sorry to have had to intrude like 
this, madam,” he said. “But I think, since she 
is ready to come, that I had better take her away 
at once, without meeting Dr. Darch.” 

“Is she really— your wife?” faltered Nance. 

“Oh, yes. I married her seven years ago, 
when she was only eighteen. Married foolish- 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


187 


ly, people would say, people did say ; she was 
sitting as model for a picture I was going to 
buy. But anyhow that is my affair; I was 
alone in the world, and could do as I liked. 
And we were quite happy till a nephew of mine 
— well, madam, it’s very distressing to have to 
tell these details, and to a lady — But they ran 
away together. I was ill, and could not follow 
them. It was only lately that I have managed 
to get upon her track, and Pm fool enough to 
be glad I’ve found her.” 

This recital was so shocking that Nance could 
say nothing. Fortunately, the embarrassed si- 
lence which followed was cut short by the ap- 
pearance of Claudia herself, looking bright and 
sweet and smiling. 

She had got the change she wanted. 

“I haven’t been long, have I?” she said, as 
she drew on her glove. “I haven’t taken any- 
thing this time,” she added with ingenuous 
effrontery. And she advanced toward Nance, 
who was too much shocked to do more than hold 
out her hand very coldly. 

“What, you won’t kiss me? Oh, very well. 
You need not. Only it’s ungrateful, because 
I’m leaving the way open for you to take my 
place.” And with a smile full of arch effronte- 
ry, Claudia turned away and gave her arm to 


188 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


Mr. Sanderson, who bowed to Nance as he left 
the room with his recovered treasure. 

Twenty minutes later Dr. Darch met Nance 
as she was hurriedly returning to her aunt’s 
house. He sprang out of his carriage, and stood 
before her, haggard, hardly able to speak. 

“She’s gone. She’s gone,” he stammered, 
hoarsely, at last. 

“Oh, Harry, can you be sorry?” 

He answered by a hoarse, rattling laugh. 

“Oh, of course not. It’s a good riddance, 
isn’t it? She wanted to poison me. Oh, my 
God, I wish she had!” 

He stood before her for another moment, as 
if unconscious of her presence, unconscious of 
everything but of the leaden agony in his soul. 
Nance was frightened,* and dared not speak 
again. 

* ‘ Good-by, ’ ’ said he at last hoarsely. ‘ ‘ I shan’t 
see you again — for a little while. I shall have 
to go away, of course — till it’s— blown over,” 

She held out her hand, unable to see for the 
tears. But his own eyes were blinded, and he 
did not see it. He was already on the step of 
the carriage. But he remembered to wave his 
hand as he drove past. 

Nance went home and frightened her aunt by 
her face, even before she gave the simple-minded 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


189 


elderly lady an expurgated account of Claudia’s 
departure. 

Perhaps she was not quite so much mistress 
of herself as she thought. For it was during 
her recital that old Mrs. Darch guessed for the 
first time how deep her niece’s affection was for 
the unhappy young doctor. And she let Nance 
see that she had guessed, as she stretched out a 
motherly hand to comfort her. 

“Well, well, dear, we must believe that it was 
all ordered for the best,” she said gently., “And 
that this trial has been sent to him to chasten 
him, to clear his eyes.” 

“I — I think it’s broken his heart, aunt,” said 
Nance in a low voice. 

“Oh, no, no, my dear, surely he will not be 
so weak. He will recover, he will forget her.” 

Nance shook her head. “I think not.” 

“Well, then, my dear, if he is so fro ward, so 
unmindful of his duty, he will greatly forfeit his 
claim to our sympathy, and I shall be glad that 
he has stood to me in no nearer relation.” 

Still Nance looked unconvinced. 

“Poor Harry!” she murmured, with the tears 
in her eyes. “I would give anything to comfort 
him — if only a little!” 

Mrs. Darch said nothing, but she was rather 
shocked. She perceived that when time should 


190 


DR. D ARCH’S WIFE 


have cicatrized the wound, hushed the scandal, 
Nance would be ready to accept such calm, sec- 
ond-best affection as Harry Darch could offer, if 
indeed he should offer it at all, thankfully, grate- 
fully. And she felt that this should not be. 
Nance should have more spirit; she should take 
the best, or none. She should not be content to 
take less than what a Claudia had despised. 

Like most ladies of her rank and age, she de- 
nied the existence of Claudias : if forced to ac- 
knowledge their existence, she banished from 
her affections, and as much as possible from 
her thoughts, the male persons who could con- 
descend to fall under their influence. 

But as for Nance, she dimly guessed that this 
experience of poor Harry’s was unique only in 
its consequences, in its publicity. 

She had loved him dearly in the old days, be- 
fore that . fatal summer holiday, when he was 
heart-whole, master of himself. 

Now that he was heart-broken, wounded, 
scarred forever by the cruel stabs of another 
woman, she loved him better than ever. 

A poor, weak-spirited creature, this lively, 
bright-eyed Nance, behind the strident times 
altogether. But there she is, waiting with an 
anxious heart for the chance that the man she 
loves may come to her for comfort, for peace. 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


m 


Bat Dr. Darck has no thought of consolation 
yet. An experience such as that of his ill-starred" 
infatuation is not forgotten so easily. Little by 
little he has learned the full particulars of the 
career of the woman he had loved and married : 
on application to Mr. and Mrs. Williams, at their 
house at Maida Vale, he learned that she was 
indeed their niece, but that her life had been a 
scandal to them, so that they had shrunk from 
inquiring into its details. They confessed that, 
on her engagement to Dr. Darch, she had ap- 
proached them, said that she was going to re- 
form, and begged to be allowed to introduce 
him to them, to which they had unwillingly 
assented. 

This was nearly all they would tell him, pro- 
fessing ignorance of her former marriage. 

But he learned from other sources that the 
nephew of Mr. Sanderson, with' whom she had 
eloped, had abandoned her when the money she 
had stolen from her husband was spent; and 
that she, in a panic of fear lest she should be 
pursued for the theft, had kept quiet in London, 
not appearing at any of her old haunts, and try- 
ing to support herself by the sale of small sketches 
and drawings which she had long ago obtained 
from artists to whom she had sat as a model. 

Hence the portfolio; the fright, which looked 


192 


DR. DARCH’S WIFE 


so like modesty, when Dr. Darch first met her, 
and passed in her guilty eyes for a detective. 

It was all very plain to him now, and he be- 
gan dimly to understand that she had never 
cared a straw about him. 

But even now, when he likes to consider him- 
self cured, there is nothing he hopes so fervently 
as that he may never have to face the ordeal of 
meeting her again. 

A. . 

jk 7 

THE END. 



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